The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: After a spree of mysterious assassinations, the British and American Governments organize a new League for the new era. (Complete)
1. The British Agent

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Emerald3: Thanks for alerting me to my spacing issue, and I'm glad you like the idea of my new League. Just wait; I've got some interesting plans for this League...  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
March 15th 2004 14:15  
  
"Hello?" James Bond, Secret Service Agent 007 said, looking inside the main office at MI6. He had just been called off his current assignment, which had been handed over to 005, with no explanation other than that he was the only one who could carry out this new mission. "Anyone in?"  
  
"Ah, 007," M said from behind her desk. "You finally arrived. Please, take a seat." Bond sat down in the indicated chair and looked at his boss. "So, what's all this about, M? A new link to this branch of assassins?"  
  
The branch of assassins in question was an extremely lethal group whose true identity was unknown. They had, to date, managed to enter the rooms of several high-up politicians and several well-off businessmen, and the only clue that they were all the work of the same person was the fact that they had left the same thing at the crime scenes; a small part of a painting of some kind.  
  
"Of sorts," M replied, as she reached into her desk and pulled out a large file. It had only three letters on its front cover: L.X.G. "You'll never have heard, I think, of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?"  
  
"Never," Bond replied. "Sounds like something from a child's comic."  
  
"Believe me, 007, the League was anything but," M explained, as she opened the comic and passed him seven photos; six were of various different men and the seventh showed a woman. "It was formed over a century ago, in 1899, by a man claiming to work for the British Government. It consisted of several characters that the world at large believed to be fictional; Mina Harker from Dracula, Captain Nemo from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Doctor Jekyll from Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Tom Sawyer from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and a thief called Rodney Skinner who stole the workings of Griffin, the scientist, from the book The Invisible Man. In the end, however, it was revealed that the man who recruited them was really attempting to control their powers for himself, and they barely managed to stop him and his agent in the League."  
  
"Agent?" Bond asked.  
  
"Dorian Gray, from The Picture of Dorian Gray," M explained, showing Bond an eighth photograph. "In fact, that's where the relevance to our current topic comes in; the fragments of a painting that have been left at the crime scenes match a part of Mr Gray's portrait- which, as you may recall, was the reason for his mysterious immortality."  
  
"He's alive?" Bond asked, his voice hiding the slight fear he was feeling. He'd read The Picture of Dorian Gray when he was younger, and had no desire to fight its title character.  
  
"No, 007," M replied, allow Bond to relax. "Mrs Harker managed to kill him in the attack on the Mongolian fortress of their adversary, the man known publicly as the Fantom. Mr Gray is definitely dead, but it is possible that some of the Fantom's soldiers have survived, and simply been biding their time. This new evidence suggests that the assassins that have been troubling us are... vampires."  
  
Bond would normally have laughed at that, but after seeing the file on the League he was doubtful; Mina Harker was a vampire, after all, and one of their earliest opponents had been Dracula himself. He supposed he had no right to criticise.  
  
"So, what's all this got to do with me?" he asked, decided he might as well get to the point.  
  
"I have been in contact with the American Government regarding the situation," M replied. "We have decided, on reflection, that the time has come to reform the League. You, 007, will be its leader."  
  
"Me?" Bond said, slightly surprised. "Lead a team? I've never exactly found it easy to get along well enough with others to make it last longer than one mission."  
  
"Unfortunately, that isn't possible right now," M said, as she pulled out another file and passed it over to Bond. "The assassins are far too powerful for you, or indeed any of our chosen members, to handle alone. You have to bring them together, and then you shall begin to track the assassins to where we believe they are based."  
  
"Which is?" Bond asked.  
  
"That shall be revealed once the rest of the League are recruited," M said, as Bond opened the file and began to read the information in it. He looked up at M once he'd finished, almost completely unable to believe what he'd found.  
  
"Is this accurate, M? I'm expected to work with..." he glanced over the file again, to ensure he hadn't made a mistake, "...a wizard, a couple of aliens, a vampire, a thief who emits electric blasts, a scientist who can become invisible, and a heiress who's been trained in several forms of combat? Do some of these even exist?"  
  
"They do," M replied, as she reached into a drawer at the side of her desk and pulled out two objects; a small black box with no distinguishing features on it, and what appeared to be a transmitting device of some kind. "The box will allow you to recruit your first member. The transmitter should be activated at the bank of the Thames, near the location of the former Millennium Dome, after you have recruited all the League members currently in England."  
  
"Let me guess, it summons our transport?" Bond asked, as he got up and began to walk towards the door.  
  
"It does. Oh, and 007?"  
  
Bond turned around and looked at his boos.  
  
"Good luck," she told him.  
  
Bond smiled his thanks at her. "Never leave home without it," he told her.  
  
Then he walked out of the office and began to head for the streets. He had a bit of thinking to do. 


	2. The Gallifreyan Exile

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
March 15th, 2004 17:08  
  
Bond stared at the box in his hand.  
  
He had been debating whether or not to use it for the past two hours since he got home. It wasn't that he didn't believe M; he had been working with her for a while now, and knew that she wouldn't have told him this if she wasn't convinced about it. It was more that some part of him didn't want to believe it. If he used this box, and it worked, than that would be almost a lifetime's principles thrown out of the window. Science fiction would no longer be fiction, but fact... Horror and supernatural would be genuinely there, not just something he read of in books...  
  
Could he do this? Could he actually lead a team whose members included a wizard and a vampire without slipping up? For all he knew, some of them wouldn't take kindly to taking orders from him, like the vampire- he was over two centuries old, why would he follow a man several decades his junior?  
  
On the other hand, he couldn't deny he'd need help. He may be good at his job, but he couldn't handle undead monsters all by himself. He'd need some people with experience with them, and he'd need other fighters capable of fighting the vampires on their own terms.  
  
He needed the other members of the League.  
  
His mind made up, Bond raised the box to his mouth. No need to do anything else to it, he recalled from the instructions he'd been given in the files. He just needed to speak to it.  
  
"Doctor?" he said, feeling a little foolish; this thing didn't even vaguely resemble a radio. "We need your help. We need to recruit your aid in a team of unique men like yourself. Arrive as soon as you get this." He waited a minute or two, and then shrugged before putting it down on a nearby table.  
  
As soon as the box left his hand, a wheezing, groaning sound was heard from outside Bond's room. Peeking out of his door to see what it was, Bond saw a tall blue box being to materialise in his hallway. It was a couple of feet taller than he was, with a small light flashing on the top. There were two small windows on the front of it, set inside its doors. There were similar windows on the other three sides of the box, and there was a small hatch in one of the doors. On the top of the box was written the words: POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX.  
  
The doors opened and a man came walking out.  
  
The man wouldn't exactly blend into a crowd. He was a tall man, maybe a couple of inches taller than Bond, with curly brown hair. He also looked very capable of handling himself in a fight, although his clothes looked like they would be a bit of a cumbrance there; he was wearing a floppy hat, a long brown coat reaching down to below his knees, grey trousers, a white shirt, and a long multicoloured scarf that wound round his neck twice and still touched the ground.  
  
"Well, this isn't one of the fancier locations I've visited," the man commented to himself, looking around. "I wonder who called me here?"  
  
"I did, Doctor," Bond replied, walking out of the door to greet them. "My name is James Bond; I'm an agent of Her Majesty's Government."  
  
"Ah, I see," the Doctor said, looking Bond up and down. "So, you'd be the one interested in...enlisting my services?"  
  
"Correct," Bond replied. "Mysterious assassins are stalking the planet. They're targeting all kinds of major figures in the world. We need your scientific advice in a team of unique men like yourself, led by me."  
  
"Really?" the Doctor said, sounding intrigued. Then, his face hardened. "Just one condition."  
  
"Which is?" Bond asked.  
  
"That I am not expected to wield a gun," the Doctor stated.  
  
"Unless there is no other option, you do not need to wield one," Bond assured him. "So, does that mean you'll accept?"  
  
The Doctor appeared to be considering the offer for a few minutes. Then he smiled and nodded at Bond.  
  
"I will," he replied, holding out his right hand. Bond took it and shook it. "Just promise you'll listen to my suggestions when I give them to you. Would you like a jelly baby, by the way?" he asked, breaking the handshake and pulling a paper bag out of his pocket.  
  
Bond reached into the bag and pulled out a small sweet. He stared at it for a second or two, and then popped it into his mouth and ate it.  
  
"Thank you," he said, uncertain what else to say to his strange new... friend, for lack of a better term.  
  
"You're welcome. So, who else will be on this team?" the Doctor asked inquiringly. "Well, you're the first one I've recruited, but the next one is fairly near here," Bond replied. "He's a wizard, currently residing in a large flat a couple of miles away. Shall we contact him now?"  
  
The Doctor nodded in agreement. "Just one request; can I see the file on him?"  
  
"Of course," Bond replied, passing the requested file over to the Doctor.  
  
After a couple of minutes flicking through the file, the Doctor looked up at the spy and nodded. "He'll be perfect," the Doctor said to Bond.  
  
"What makes you so sure?" Bond asked.  
  
"His branch of magic," the Doctor explained. "There are several kinds of magic, you see, and I know of one kind that has the annoying tendency to use its wielder as much as he or she uses it, until they can't live without it. This one doesn't wield that kind, so he should be more reliable."  
  
"Good," Bond said, as he opened his door and walked out, followed by the Doctor. "Oh, before we leave, don't forget to have my TARDIS transferred to whatever it is we'll be travelling in," the Doctor said, looking back at Bond.  
  
"TARDIS?" Bond asked, looking back at the Doctor.  
  
"The Police Box," the Doctor said, indicating it with his thumb. "I always feel better having it available."  
  
"Very well," Bond said, as he pulled out his mobile phone and sent a quick text to the office.  
  
Next stop, recruiting a wizard. 


	3. The Villain

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
March 15th, 2004 17:23  
  
In the centre of a vast room, located at the heart of a mass of destruction and death, a man sat in a throne and stared out in front of him, his hands clasped in front of him with the index fingers pointing up. He was dressed in a long black robe, in a style that had gone out of fashion almost a century ago, and a black suit in a similar style. The robe had a red inner lining, and it appeared that it would reach down to around his ankles if he were standing up. What the man's face looked like was unknown even to his friends, as he constantly wore a metal mask that covered his entire head baring the eyes, which were brown. The only other openings in the mask were a couple of small holes for his nose and ears, and a larger one for his mouth. A thing black cane was propped up on the side of the throne, with a small silver skull on the end of it.  
  
He looked over at a nearby door as the sound of steps was heard. The door soon opened and a tall man came running in.  
  
He was indeed remarkably tall, reaching almost six foot two in height. His shoulders were slightly unusual, looking like there was something on them that was trying to get out from under his shirt. His fingernails were long, his hair was black, and his eyes were red where they should be white. His overall costume was dark blue; his shirt, his jeans, and even his shoes were all that colour.  
  
"Yes, Gash, what is it?" the man asked, as though he couldn't care less what the man was doing there. Gash ignored it; he'd gotten used to his superior's typically condensing attitude by now.  
  
Besides, the man didn't smell right. Gash knew humans, and this man was something else. He didn't want to risk finding out that it was something that could kill him by questioning his orders.  
  
"We've just received the news from our government contact," Gash said, looking over at his boss to try and work out what his reaction would be. "Your hunch was correct; they're reforming the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." Annoyingly, his boss showed no sign of surprise; his hunches were right so often, he'd almost come to expect them being correct by now. "Here are the files on their new members," Gash continued, passing the man nine files filled with paper.  
  
The man took them from Gash, and began to look over them. After a few minutes, he glanced up at Gash with a slight grin visible in his eyes.  
  
"Excellent," he said, passing the files back to Gash before placing his hands back in front of him again. "I presume we have a good idea as to which members they're recruiting in what order?"  
  
"Yes," Gash replied. "The spy and the exile have already been contacted, and they're going to track down the wizard as we speak. We think that, once they're in America, they'll be going after the scientist, the warrior, the vampire, the alien, the thief, and the psychic."  
  
"Exactly," the man smiled, his eyes flashing with another malicious grin. "Exactly what I thought. The scientist at least remains in one city, and the thief is fairly regular in her movements. To track down the psychic will require all of the League's various skills. You know what to do, correct?" he asked, looking over at Gash.  
  
Gash nodded. "Follow them, then attack and destroy them with six select assassins of my choice, picked from your private army."  
  
"Exactly," the masked man replied. "Anything else?"  
  
"Yes," Gash said, going over the orders in his head. "Have two of the strongest ones target the spy, the exile, the scientist, and the warrior; they may be only human, but it would still be wise to have the stronger ones tackling them, just to make sure."  
  
"Correct," the man replied. "And, in the unlikely event of you failing?"  
  
"I use your machine to go back to the time of the original League, and kill Agent Sawyer and Captain Nemo at the very least," Gash continued. "With them gone, the original League will split up and the governments will abandon it as a failure, and history shall change so that this new team will never be formed. However, you shall shield yourself from the changes, and then take out all the members of this new League before you launch your plan, so that they can pose no threat to you individually." He paused briefly. "Remind me again why we can't just kill this new League while they're all kids?"  
  
"Because my time machine does not allow me to make changes in history within the last fifty years," the man replied. "As it is, this is going to be an incredibly complicated stunt to pull off."  
  
"Right," Gash said, as he turned around. "I'll just be off to organise the assassins, shall I, boss?"  
  
"Do so," the man replied, turning around in his seat to face a painting that hung on the wall, brown paper wrapped around it.  
  
As Gash left the room, the man reached over with his cane and used the point of slowly pull the paper off the sheet. The picture behind it had originally shown a young, handsome man dressed in a grey suit with a slightly frilly shirt. The man's hair was raven black with a seductive curl about it, and he had a moustache and a small goatee as well. However, al these features were getting difficult to see clearly, as several strips of the painting had been torn away with an almost surgical precision.  
  
"Ah, the fabled picture of Dorian Gray," the man commented, grinning as he spoke. "Once, the only thing keeping one of the world's deadliest men alive."  
  
Then his face hardened under its mask. "But no longer."  
  
With that, he pushed one of the eyeholes of the skull on the end of his cane. A small knife came out of the other side, which he used to cut another strip off the painting. Staring at the small strip on the end of his cane, the man grinned a little.  
  
"Beware, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," he said, grinning. "Soon, my friends... soon, you shall pay the price for thwarting me a century ago..."  
  
And then he threw back his head and laughed. 


	4. The Orphaned Wizard

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
March 15th, 2004 17:55  
  
After about forty minutes of driving, Bond stopped his car outside a house. As he and the Doctor got out of the car, the Doctor quickly ran an inquisitive eye over the house in front of him. It didn't look like much at first glance; two stories, about two large windows on either side of the front door, the same on the upper floor with a smaller window above the door itself, and the stonework was all grey in colour. Overall, it didn't give the impression of being the home of anyone extraordinary, male or female.  
  
Then again, the Doctor reminded himself, he'd often met opponents who hid themselves in some very unlikely places. Azal and the church at Devil's End sprang to mind immediately, as did the Ten-Strong on that old asteroid.  
  
"Well, it seems a pleasant enough place," he smiled, glancing over at the spy.  
  
"He deserves it," Bond replied. "The man we're here to recruit had a very traumatic childhood; parents killed, godfather in jail-"  
  
"Legal guardians don't like him, no clue as to what he really is, I know all that from the file," the Doctor put in dismissively. "Still, it would appear to be a very accurate opinion, saying he deserves a place like this."  
  
"It's just a pity we have to take it all away form him for the moment," Bond sighed, as he went to the door and rang the bell.  
  
The door was opened by a young woman, not much older than twenty, the Doctor estimated. She had brilliant red hair, some small freckles around her nose, chocolate-brown eyes, and a small birthmark above her lip. She looked at the two men on her doorstep curiously.  
  
"Who are you?" she asked curiously.  
  
"Miss Virginia Weasley?" Bond asked. "Commonly known as Ginny?"  
  
"I am," Ginny replied, puzzled.  
  
"My name is James Bond, and this is my colleague..." Bond asked, indicating the Doctor, uncertain what to say. The Doctor understood; it didn't really make sense to say 'This is my friend and colleague, the Doctor'.  
  
"Smith," he said, smiling and stepping forward to shake Ginny's hand. "Doctor John Smith. We're here to speak to Mr Harry Potter."  
  
"About what?" Ginny asked, looking very defensive all of a sudden.  
  
"We're from the British Government," Bond explained. "We're interested in enlisting his services in dealing with a crisis that is definitely not an easy situation."  
  
"Really," Ginny said, as she opened the door of the house. "Well, come in, then. I'll just nip up and get him. The sitting room's over there, by the way," she added, pointing to a door to her left before turning around and heading up the stairs.  
  
Shrugging, Bond and the Doctor walked into the room and sat down in one of the sofas in the room. A second sofa was just opposite them, so it would be easy enough to talk to Harry and Ginny when they got back down.  
  
After waiting for only a few minutes, Ginny came into the room followed by a young man about a year older then she was. He was about a couple of inches taller than Ginny, had messy black hair, piercing green eyes, and a small scar on his forehead shaped like a bolt of lightning. He was wearing a blue-and-white checked shirt, blue jeans, and a pair of glasses.  
  
"Mr Harry Potter?" Bond asked, as he and the Doctor stood up and shook the man's hand.  
  
"Yes, that's me," Harry replied, shaking their hands before he sat down on the sofa with Ginny. "So, what exactly does the government want from me?"  
  
"Your services as a wizard are one thing," the Doctor grinned. "Plus, with your unique history, you've got access to all kinds of knowledge that others don't."  
  
Harry and Ginny's jaws dropped.  
  
"You... you know?" Harry gasped, barely able to believe it.  
  
"Well, the British Government has been aware of the existence of the magical world for some time now," Bond explained, as he sat back in the chair in a very casual manner. "It's simply that it was felt by the Ministry of Magic that, if they alerted certain discreet Government officials to the existence of your world, it would be easier to stop any unwanted investigations into certain things."  
  
"Oh like the murders committed by... um, do You-Know-Who, or did the files not mention that?" Ginny asked, looking curiously at Bond.  
  
"Oh, Voldemort?" the Doctor asked casually, just missing the brief twinge on Ginny's face. "Yes, we know about him- and about you defeated him," he added, turning back to face Harry. "That's the main reason we're contacting you rather than anyone else in the wizarding world; you're very good at doing what you do."  
  
"The most basic reason is that you're the most powerful wizard we've been able to track down, but we'd probably have gone for you even if we had been able to find some of the others," Bond said. "So, will you join us?"  
  
Harry sat in the chair and thought for a couple of minutes. Then he sat up and looked at Bond. "I'll do it," he said. "It'll be good to get out and about again. However, I just have one request."  
  
"Name it," the Doctor replied.  
  
"I'm sure you've already got a full list of your members, so I won't ask for it to be full-time," Harry said. "However, I'd like Ginny to be on a list of reserve members for our team, in the event of a really large problem occurring. Quite frankly, her love and support would benefit us all."  
  
Ginny smiled and kissed Harry briefly on the lips.  
  
Bond and the Doctor looked over at each other, and nodded. Bond turned back to the couple.  
  
"Agreed," he said. "Mr Potter, get packing; time's wasting, and we have to get going."  
  
"Back in a mo," Harry said, as he and Ginny got off the sofa and hurried upstairs, leaving Bond and the Doctor to walk out of the sitting room and out to the hall.  
  
After waiting for only a few minutes, Harry finally joined the two of them at the door, dragging a large trunk behind him and carrying a broomstick under one arm. He dumped the stuff down on the ground, and then turned around kissed Ginny.  
  
"I'll be back," he said, as they parted. "Trust me."  
  
"You'd better be," Ginny replied. "Or, so help me, I'll find some way up to heaven and I'll beat you senseless."  
  
"I'll be sure to stay alive, then," Harry grinned. Then he picked up his trunk and broom and headed off down to Bond's car with his new teammates. They then drove off, Harry waving goodbye to Ginny before she vanished from view.  
  
*****  
  
After half an hour's driving, Bond stopped the car right outside the large white form that had once been known as the Millennium Dome.  
  
"What are we doing here?" Harry asked, as he and the Doctor got out of the car.  
  
"All our other members are located in America," Bond explained, as he shut and locked his car. "I've been told that, with you two recruited, I was to come here and use this transmitter." He pulled out the transmitter and pushed the button on it as the three of them walked towards the bank of the Thames.  
  
Just as they reached the bank, a massive form rose up majestically out of the water. It was a submarine, but far larger than anything that any of the three people had seen before, stretching for what almost seemed to be a mile from end to end. It was a brilliant white in colour, with some silver in places and a black viewing tower on the top.  
  
"Wow..." Harry said simply, as the submarine stopped rising. A door in front of them dropped down, and an old man walked out of it. The man in question had on a dark blue suit, with a dark red tie and a light blue shirt on underneath, along with a small grey moustache.  
  
"Ah, 007, you're here at last," the man said, shaking the spy's hand.  
  
"Good to see you, Q," Bond replied, before looking over at the submarine. "And what is this thing, anyway?"  
  
"The Nautilus, 007," Q explained, as he turned back to face the submarine. "It was the regular means of transport for the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, invented by their scientist, Captain Nemo."  
  
"Wait a minute," the Doctor said, butting in. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but the original League was formed over a century ago. How can the Nautilus have survived?"  
  
"We've made some modifications to it over the years," Q explained, looking back at his fellow scientist. (Admittedly, an alien scientist.) "It's not quite the ship it was back then. It's far more advanced, and still the most incredible ship in the world."  
  
"So, this is going to be our home in this team?" Harry said, looking it over. "I'll say this; it's certainly interesting."  
  
"Yes, well, praise is going to have to wait," Q said. "Time is not in your favour, gentlemen. You've got only a few days to get to America and find your six teammates. Several cars have been loaded on already- oh, along with your TARDIS and Bessie," he said to the Doctor, who nodded in thanks, "And you've got a stack of weaponry loaded as well. Good luck."  
  
Then he turned around and walked away, leaving the three of them standing on the bank.  
  
Eventually, Bond shrugged and started to walk towards the Nautilus, followed closely by the Doctor and Harry. 


	5. The Vigilante Scientist

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Crystal: Sorry for not specifying; Harry and Ginny are romantically involved now. The plot may seem scattered, but at the moment I'm trying to more focus on who's being recruited for this new League, and things will start to make a bit more sense after they're all together.  
  
Andrea: Glad you're liking it, and good guess on one member being Lara Croft. However, it was a case of close but no cigar; Lara's not quite my style.  
  
Arieanna: Thanks, I'm glad you like the story so far. Hope the rest of it gets your approval as well.  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
March 18th 2004 10:30  
  
They were finally stopping in New York, having been on the move for a good couple of days in the Nautilus. One thing Bond couldn't deny; this ship may not have been the fastest means of transport, but it was still a rapid mover.  
  
Right now, he was going out with Harry to try and track down their fourth member. The Doctor would have joined them, but he was currently working on a couple of features that would improve the speed of some of their cars, on the strict condition that nobody tried to duplicate what he did to them.  
  
They'd driven off in an American- style BMW that had been located near the front of the Nautilus's car bay, and were currently heading for one of the darker areas of New York. The two of them had grabbed a rucksack to carry some of their equipment before they left the submarine, which was currently hiding behind Liberty Island, the Doctor awaiting their call. He'd already practically confirmed a position as captain of the Nautilus, even if Bond was going to be their leader in the field.  
  
"So, who are we after here?" Harry asked, looking over at Bond.  
  
"A woman called Fiona Brand," Bond explained, as he indicated a file in Harry's door pocket. "She was once in the employ of a Doctor Sebastian Caine, who was in charge of a government project to turn things invisible. When he finally managed to crack the code, he used himself as the human test subject, and managed to become invisible."  
  
"Yeah, I see..." Harry said, looking over the file in front of him. "According to this, Caine then became... well, a bit of a pervert, to cut straight to point, spying on several of his colleagues while they made love. His ex and her current lover attempted to kill him, and eventually succeeding, although it took a bit longer than anyone was expecting- the theory is that the subject's cells, not needing to reflect light anymore, were able to regenerate faster. Is that right?"  
  
"Exactly, Harry," Bond replied, as he turned a corner. "Miss Brand was one of the more small-time scientists on the project- responsible for suggestions that led to a couple of pushes forward, but nothing especially major. However, after Mr Caine ended up dead, she became determined to find out what part of the invisibility process had driven him insane, and thus perfect it for general use. She found it, but nobody in the Government was interested in taking it any further."  
  
"Yeah..." Harry said, as he began to read the file again. "She carried out the process on herself, just to prove that it worked, but before she could get to the government, they destroyed the facility, and she barely managed to escape. She could now make herself turn invisible at will, along with the clothes she was wearing when she carried out the experiment on herself, but she also changes when she sneezes, or is bored, among other things." He looked over at Bond. "And we think she's here, James?"  
  
"It's her home," Bond replied simply. "If she's anywhere, it'll be here."  
  
"Good point," Harry said, nodding a little as they continued to drive. "Are we following up any clues here, or are we just going to drive around aimlessly until we find something?"  
  
"We have a fixed pattern to follow," Bond replied. "She's been attacking various assorted small criminals- thieves, that sort of thing- in the same area of New York. All we need to do is get to that area's local crime hotspots, and everything should be easy from there."  
  
"Let me guess, you have that information?" Harry asked casually.  
  
"I have certain contacts in the American Secret Services, yes," Bond replied. He left it at that.  
  
Shrugging, Harry just sat back in his seat and waited. He was curious about both of his new friends, he wouldn't deny that, but they weren't interested in talking to him about themselves just yet, he wouldn't push them.  
  
*****  
  
After a couple of hours of driving, Bond finally parked the car in a rather dirty-looking part of New York.  
  
As Harry got out of the car, he was grateful that he'd been practicing his defence spells recently, as well as his Memory Charms; judging by the looks of this place, he might need to defend himself, and he'd rather not have to use magic in front of muggles without being able to ensure they wouldn't talk about it. His teammates were another matter, of course; they already knew about his abilities, for one thing.  
  
"You sure she'll be here?" he asked Bond, as the spy locked his car and checked the gun concealed under his jacket.  
  
"She should be," Bond replied, as the two of them started to walk along a nearby street. "My contacts say that crooks here are regularly targeted by some unseen force. If that doesn't mean it's an invisible person here, I don't know what does."  
  
Harry simply nodded. Then Bond suddenly stopped and pointed down an alleyway on their left.  
  
"Something's going on down there," he said, indicating the alley. The two of them exchanged glances, and then they ran to each side of the alley, Bond pulling out his gun and Harry his wand just in case.  
  
Peering around their respective corners, the spy and the wizard saw a man walking down the street, with a gun in his hand that he was pointing at a young woman in front of him. It appeared to be a simple case of mugging, but Harry and Bond tensed themselves in case they were needed.  
  
Suddenly, just as the man was about to grab the woman's purse, he suddenly bent over as thought something had hit him in the back of the head. He spun around, as though to confront whatever had hit him, but when nothing was there, he just shrugged and turned back to the woman. Before he could even get a word out, something yanked his gun out of his hand and it struck him in the back of the head, knocking him out cold.  
  
The woman, looking shaken and slightly scared, then stopped for a couple of moments as though she were listening to something. Then she nodded and walked off, still slightly shaken.  
  
Meanwhile, where he lay unconscious on the ground, the man was being tied up by some strips of cloth that were being cut from his shirt with a pen knife. The knife appeared to just be floating in mid air, although it was often left on the man's chest or back while his hands and legs were tied.  
  
Eventually, once his eyes and mouth had been covered by the torn shirt, the knife went back into his pocket. There was a slight glimmer in the air, and suddenly a young woman was standing in the alleyway.  
  
She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, wearing black shoes, dark blue jeans, a denim jacket, and a dark red t-shirt, along with black leather gloves. Her eyes were brown, and she had dark hair, which was red when the light touched it in the correct manner, that reached down to just below her neck.  
  
"Miss Fiona Brand?" Bond asked, slipping his gun back into its holster and stepping out from the shadows, Harry right behind him with his wand back in his pocket.  
  
Startled, Fiona spun around to face the two men, visibly ready to fight if she had to.  
  
"Who are you and how do you know my name?" she asked the two of them, relaxing a little as she spoke.  
  
"My name is Bond, James Bond," he said, holding his hand out to her. She took it and shook it, still feeling slightly on edge, but she appeared more relaxed now to Harry. "This is my colleague, Harry Potter," he said, stepping aside to allow Harry forward. "The British and American governments are recruiting a team of unique men and women to handle a danger to the world, and they wish you to be one of them."  
  
Fiona blinked a little at that statement. Then she nodded.  
  
"Count me in," she said, smiling at the two of them.  
  
Harry blinked; he hadn't been expecting her to react that fast.  
  
Fiona looked over at him, and grinned. "What, not expecting me to agree?"  
  
"More that I wasn't expecting you to agree so quickly," Harry replied.  
  
Fiona shrugged. "After the way Doctor Caine used his invisibility, I just feel like making up for him," she explained, as she walked away with the spy and the wizard towards the car. "So, who else is in this team?" she asked, as she got into the back of the car, leaving Harry and Bond in the front.  
  
"At the moment, only our resident scientist, the Doctor," Harry said to her, before pulling out another file from beside him and looking over it. "Although, according to this, we've got another member in this very city." He glanced over to Bond. "I guess we're picking her up too?"  
  
"Exactly," Bond replied, as he turned the car around a corner and they returned to New York's regular streets. "Fortunately, she'll be a lot easier to find."  
  
AN: In case you're wondering why I've just created my own invisible person BASED on Sebastian Caine instead of using Caine himself, there are two reasons. One; Having only read about 'Hollow Man', I don't know how Caine did, so I can't work out a way he might have survived, if I can think of any. Two; Fiona Brand (Yes, she does exist) asked to be involved in one of my stories, since my writing is known about at school, and I figured here was a s good a place as any to put her. 


	6. The Hidden Warrior

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Jezrianna: A good point you made, but I'll just explain my reasons for having the books exist here. In the novelization of 'LXG', it was commented that Dorian Gray used to be a friend of Oscar Wilde, which suggests to me that Wilde may have written his book about Gray in their reality.  
  
Also, since LXG sets the League characters in the same world as Sherlock Holmes, it occurred to me that a couple of books written by the mystery writer Loren D. Estlemen ('Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula', and 'Doctor Jekyll and Mr Holmes', in which the great detective investigates the cases of Count Dracula and Mr Hyde) may very well have actually happened; in which case, the books would have been genuinely published, since it was stated in both books that 'Dracula' and 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde' were written, but passed off as fiction because society wouldn't accept them as fact.  
  
Therefore, I am basing this story on the assumption that the League at large were believed to be fiction even in their world, and only a few people know that they actually existed as anything other than words on paper.  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
After another half-hour's driving, Bond pulled to a halt outside a large, solid-looking building near the centre of New York. Baring its size, it was unremarkable; grey stonework, a simple set of stairs leading up, windows dotted around about a metre or so apart from each other all over the front of it, a basic wooden double door, the usual sort of thing. The only thing that prevented you from thinking the building was deserted was a sign just above the door, with one word on it.  
  
SHELTER.  
  
"Not much, is it?" Fiona said to Bond, as the three of them got out of the car and looked at the building in front of them.  
  
"It's not meant to be too fancy," Harry replied, as Bond locked the car and the three of them walked up the steps towards the door. "The women who runs this place is generally trying to keep her very existence quiet, to say nothing of this shelter."  
  
"What did she do to merit that kind of secrecy?" Fiona asked, as they opened the door and began to walk along the corridor. It wasn't much more interesting than the outside of the building had been; the whole corridor was in a uniform shade of white on all the walls and the ceiling, with the floor a dark blue in colour.  
  
"She was targeted by a crime organisation led by a man calling himself 'the Kingpin', Bond explained. "She was nearly killed by them, but fortunately she was saved by some policemen who found her body and managed to get her heart beating again long enough for her to be taken to a hospital and saved. However, it was regarded as being too risky for her to return to public life, even though the Kingpin had been stopped-"  
  
"By the vigilante called 'the Daredevil'?" Fiona asked. "I read about that in the papers." She frowned and turned to Bond. "Talking of Daredevil, why aren't we trying to recruit him?"  
  
"There's one very good reason why we're not," Bond replied. "A couple of our agents have managed to work out his true identity, but his extraordinary capabilities make it difficult for him to fight in a team with anyone by his side."  
  
"Why's that?" Fiona asked.  
  
"He's blind," Bond replied, as he continued walking.  
  
Harry and Fiona stopped short, staring at Bond in disbelief.  
  
Bond stopped and looked back at them. "Let me guess, you're wondering how he can do what he can do if he's blind?"  
  
"Well... yeah," Fiona replied, while Harry just stared ahead of himself in a slight state of shock.  
  
"He lost his sight when he was hit in the eyes with the contents of a drum of radioactive waste," Bond explained, as Harry finally got himself back to reality and started listening to Bond. "As you know, when a man looses one of his senses the other four heighten to compensate for it; in Daredevil's case, the radiation heightened his senses to a far higher degree than normal. As a result, his hearing functions as a sort of radar, allowing him to build up a coherent picture of his surroundings just by the sound that's made."  
  
"Oh, I think I understand," Harry said, speaking for the first time since they'd entered the building. "His heightened hearing allows him to detect where anyone is, but it can be more difficult when he's fighting with someone; with too many people around him, he might not have time to determine if they're on his side or not."  
  
"Exactly," Bond replied, as he continued to walk down the hall. Glancing around them as they walked behind him, Fiona and Harry noticed doors leading to some of the other rooms in the shelter; a dining room, a room filled with several chairs and a television in the centre, a large library filled with books of all shapes and sizes, and several assorted bedrooms. Fiona noted that the rooms were far more comfortable than you'd normally find in these shelters; evidently, its owner had a lot of cash to spare.  
  
Finally, they arrived at a door right at the end of the corridor. Fiona noted the writing on it; it simply said 'Caroline Murdock, Manager'.  
  
Glancing over at Bond, Fiona raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Her alias from the protection program?" she asked the spy.  
  
"Exactly," Bond said, as he knocked on the door.  
  
"Come in," a female voice said from the other side of the door. Bond opened the door and the three of them walked into the office.  
  
The office wasn't the largest of rooms, but it had a fair amount of stuff in it despite that. There were two large bookshelves against the opposite wall, and a couple of plants to either side of the door. In front of them was a desk that, if it had been up against the wall, would have stretched half the length of the room, made of a dark red-and-brown wood. There were four chairs in front of the desk, all looking fairly comfortable.  
  
The woman sitting behind the desk was tall and in good shape without being especially muscular, with brilliant green eyes and rich brown hair that reached down to around the middle of her back. Her skin was smooth and positively glowed, the only thing spoiling the effect being a slight scar on her neck and a wound in her left hand. She was wearing a blue denim jacket and jeans, with a white sleeveless top.  
  
"Yes?" she asked them, looking up as Harry shut the door. "Can I help you three?"  
  
"I think you can... tell me, would you prefer Miss Caroline Murdock, or Miss Elektra Natchios?" Bond asked, looking at her casually.  
  
The woman tensed up, and she looked at the three of them with a sudden spark of worry in her eyes.  
  
"We're not with the Kingpin," Harry said, trying to sound assuring. "We just want to talk to you."  
  
Elektra relaxed slightly, but she still appeared very on-edge. "You have my attention," she said simply. "Take a seat."  
  
"My name is James Bond," Bond said, as the three of them sat down in two of the chairs. "These are my colleagues, Harry Potter and Fiona Brand. We are members of a team the British and American Governments are setting up, and they are interested in recruiting you as a member."  
  
"Really?" Elektra said, as she sat back in her chair and listened. "You've got my attention, but I'd prefer to know exactly what I'll be expected to work with."  
  
"Well, there is this," Fiona said, as she stood up. Suddenly, she vanished.  
  
"What the..." Elektra said. Suddenly, Fiona's voice started to speak from thin air.  
  
"That's what I can do, just for your reference," the voice said, before Fiona reappeared standing beside the office door. "I was only recently recruited, but these two have filled me in on what they can do; James is Britain's best secret agent, and Harry's a wizard."  
  
"There's a fourth member as well," Harry put in. "He calls himself 'the Doctor'. He's a time traveller and an alien, and serves as our resident scientist." Elektra stared a little at that last comment. He shrugged. "Hey, who said you had to be human to care about the fate of Earth?"  
  
Elektra nodded a little, then she turned back to the matter at hand. "Exactly what would I be fighting if I joined you?"  
  
"Vampiric assassins," Bond stated simply. "We're not sure who's behind them, but the current theory is that they have some kind of connection to a criminal empire that was in action over a century ago. They may have other agents that we don't know about, but the vampires are what we're aware of."  
  
"I see," Elektra said, nodding slightly. Then she stared the three of them in the eye. "I'm not coming."  
  
Bond blinked. "Pardon?" he asked.  
  
Elektra sighed. "Not that I'm not grateful for you thinking I'll bring something to your team, but the truth is, I'm just some rich little girl who trained a lot. I don't qualify as being in your league."  
  
"That's not exactly true, you know," Fiona said, looking the other woman straight in the eye.  
  
"Believe me, it's true," Elektra replied harshly, standing up. "I only went into genuine action once in my life, and look at what it got me!"  
  
And she pulled her top up to show her stomach.  
  
The three of them briefly winced at the sight that greeted them; just above Elektra's belly button, there was a large, disfiguring scar that appeared to have been caused by something sharp getting stuck right in her chest. The files he'd read hadn't gone into that much detail, but Harry was fairly certain that whatever fight she'd sustained those wounds in was the fight that had led to her being put on the protection program.  
  
Elektra lowered her top and sat down. "I'm not exactly that good at fighting people."  
  
Bond sighed. "Maybe you're right," he said, as the three of them got up out of their seats and began to walk out. Suddenly, Bond reached into his pocket, whipped out his gun, and pointed it directly at Elektra's face.  
  
Acting purely on instinct, Elektra knocked the gun right out of his hand, grabbed it, and had it pointing at his head before Bond had even realised what had happened.  
  
Then she realised what she'd done. Dropping the gun, she stared at her hands in amazement.  
  
Harry voiced the opinions of them all.  
  
"You don't seem to be that useless," he said, smiling at her. "I certainly wouldn't like to get on your wrong side in a fight, and I'm a wizard." He held out his hand to her. "So, what do you say?"  
  
Elektra looked down at his hand, looked around her at her office, and shrugged.  
  
"What the hell," she said, shaking Harry's hand. "Just let me tie up a couple of loose ends her, and I'll be right with you."  
  
*****  
  
After about half an hour's driving, the four of them arrived back at the pier where they were to meet the Nautilus. Elektra had changed into her fighting outfit after handing the shelter over to a member of staff; she was now wearing a pair of leather trousers with high-heeled leather shoes, a sleeveless leather crop top that showed off her stomach (The effect slightly damaged by the wound), a leather strap around her neck and two above her elbows, and two glove-like things that stretched from below her elbows to her hands, but leaving her fingers uncovered. She had two sharp daggers clipped onto the sides of her trousers, and looked far deadlier than she had behind her desk.  
  
"OK, so where's this incredible submarine we've heard so much about?" Fiona asked, looking over at Harry. "Is it invisible as well?"  
  
"Just a moment," Bond said, as he pulled out the transmitter that Harry recognised from the previous time they'd called the Nautilus, and pushed the button.  
  
Nothing happened immediately.  
  
"Well, not that this isn't exhilarating in its own way, but..." Elektra said, just before the water in front of them started to bubble and churn fiercely.  
  
"What the?" Fiona asked, starting to lean over to look at the disturbance, her inner scientist taking charge. Harry tapped her arm and she turned away to look at him. "Yes?"  
  
"I wouldn't do that if I were you; the Nautilus could hit your head," Harry explained.  
  
"The wh-" Fiona began, before the waters parted to reveal the massive submarine.  
  
"Wow..." Elektra whispered, as the Nautilus stopped rising. A large hatch opened, and out drove a large, almost futuristic-looking car. It had six headlights, each gathered together inside a triangle-like shape with smooth edges, and long fins tapering to a smooth point behind it. It was simply round on the bottom, with no sign of wheels on it at all; it almost appeared to be floating above the ground. It was also remarkably long and spacious inside, from what the others could see; Fiona would even swear she could see a television.  
  
The car stopped, and the Doctor got out.  
  
"Ah, good to see you all!" he said, grinning and patting them all on the back. He then turned to Fiona and Elektra, and held out both hands to them. "How do you do, Miss Brand and Miss Natchios? I'm the Doctor, our resident scientist, and this," he said, waving his hand at the car, "is a little thing I call the League-mobile."  
  
"I see..." Fiona said, as she looked at the car. She glanced over at the Doctor. "It's not exactly subtle, is it?"  
  
"Well, we're hardly not going to draw some eyes in a crowd, are we?" the Doctor asked, grinning at his new friends. "Besides, it's remarkably fast, and it can hold all of us and our next four members with no trouble at all. I think that the fact that it looks rather unusual is a small price to pay for that."  
  
Harry shrugged as he looked over at Fiona. "Good point, you have to admit," he said, smiling at the scientist.  
  
Fiona sighed a little. "All right, let's go," she said, as she began to walk towards the car's main door. Just before she stepped inside, however, she turned back and looked at Bond. "Where are we going now, by the way?"  
  
"Kansas," Bond replied, as he and the others began to walk towards the car as well. "A town called Smallville. There's been some interesting goings- on there, and we'll be recruiting the person who keeps it all under control."  
  
"How does he pull that off?" Elektra asked, from her position at the back of the line.  
  
The Doctor smiled. "He's the last of his species in the universe." 


	7. The Surviving Alien

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Taka-Ichi-Sisters: You shall have to wait and see, but they'll be appearing soon...  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
After a few hours of driving the car, the Doctor rapped on the roof to awaken his teammates.  
  
"We're here!" he called out, as the rest of the League began to stir. The interior of the League-mobile was based on the TARDIS, so it was far larger inside than outside; in fact, the car's interior was nearly the size of a house. It even held all the rooms you'd expect to find in a house; a kitchen, several assorted bedrooms, and he'd included a separate room for their television, DVD player and books, just in case anyone felt like it. He might add in a training room as well later on, if he felt it would be needed.  
  
The Doctor was perfectly aware that the Time Lords wouldn't be too keen on his using their technology in a car, but he had that all under control; once this mission was over, he'd lock the car up in a room in the Nautilus and seal it behind a time dam that would be coded to drop only upon detecting his DNA. That way, Time Lord technology wouldn't fall into the wrong hands and hopefully everyone would be content with the situation.  
  
"So, this is the home of the sole survivor of an entire world?" Fiona asked, looking around her at the town. The Doctor understood her scepticism; Smallville didn't really seem the sort of place you'd expect a superhuman alien to live.  
  
"Actually, it's not his exact home, he lives on a farm a mile or so outside it," Harry said, from where he was now sitting behind the Doctor. "But, generally, this is it, yes."  
  
"Well, if nothing else, it's a cosy little place," Elektra said, looking around at al the buildings. Although they appeared to be mostly fairly modern constructions, they all had a slightly 'old-world' feel that she found somehow comforting.  
  
"Yes, a pleasant enough location, certainly," Bond said, as he stretched slightly before sitting down in the second driver's seat beside the Doctor's. "Let's just hope we don't run into one of Miss Sullivan's 'Freaks of the Week', as she calls them."  
  
"Pardon?" Fiona asked, glancing over at the spy. "What do you mean, 'freaks of the week'? And who's Miss Sullivan?"  
  
"Her full name's Chloe Sullivan, and she's a reporter on a local paper called The Torch," Bond explained, as the Doctor turned the League-mobile left and started to go along a side street leading out of the town. "As for the 'freak of the week', well, that story is connected to the history of our next member."  
  
"Well, let's hear it," Harry said, as the rest of the League sat down in the chairs around the front of the League-mobile.  
  
"It all started around eighteen or so years ago," Bond explained, while the Doctor drove on, apparently oblivious to everything around him. "As far as we've been able to gather from our sources, at that point a meteor shower covered the entire local area with some unusual green rocks, apparently radioactive. Anyone coming in contact with these rocks developed some unusual powers; some of the ones we know about had the ability to start fires, walk through walls, split into two people, heal any wounds, and being able to see the future. They've always proven to be extremely dangerous characters, but fortunately the man we're here to recruit has always been able to stop them."  
  
"How's that?" Elektra asked. "He some other 'Freak of the Week' that Miss Sullivan doesn't know about?"  
  
"It's a lot more complicated than that, Miss Natchios," Bond replied, as the League-mobile left the town and began to drive towards a small farm on its outskirts. "He actually arrived on Earth in the meteor shower, in a spaceship, while he was a baby. His planet was destroyed by a chain reaction in its core, along with all the inhabitants, but his father managed to shoot him off the planet before it collapsed."  
  
"Your yellow sun had a rather curious effect on his alien cell structure," the Doctor explained, as he continued to drive along on a small country road. "It boosted his abilities to a far greater degree than anything that could have been guessed at; he can move at incredible speeds, is nearly invulnerable, and can even fire heat beams from his eyes and possesses x- ray vision." He grinned a little as he turned the car around a corner and began to drive up towards a small farm. "And here is his house."  
  
Harry, Elektra and Fiona stared at the house in surprise. It wasn't quite what they'd been expecting; it was a two-storey house, the wooden walls painted white and the roof a grey colour, with a barn off to one side and various animals in the surrounding fields.  
  
Then again, Harry and Elektra had to admit they didn't exactly live in the most impressive-looking of locations. Everyone was prepared to wait and see what the new member could do before they started doubting his abilities.  
  
The Doctor stopped the car right outside the door to the farm. He glanced back at the others, a grin on his face. "Everyone out," he said, as he pushed a button on the dashboard and the front door popped open.  
  
As the League walked out of the League-mobile, Harry led the way to the door of the farm. Glancing back at the others, he sighed and knocked.  
  
The door was opened by a woman. She wasn't especially tall, maybe somewhere near Harry's height, and wasn't quite the classic beauty, but she was far from plain and had a certain spark about her that it was difficult to ignore. Her hair was strawberry-blond, and she had brilliant blue eyes.  
  
"Yes?" she asked, looking at the five of them as though uncertain who to talk to.  
  
Bond spoke first. "Mrs Martha Kent?" he asked, stepping forward.  
  
She nodded. Bond smiled at her. "My name is Bond, James Bond," he said, shaking her hand. "These are my colleagues, Doctor John Smith, Mr Harry Potter, Miss Fiona Brand, and Miss Elektra Natchios." Each member of the League stepped forward to shake Martha's hand as they were introduced. "Is your son in? We need to speak with him."  
  
"Clark?" Martha asked, looking at them curiously. "Why do you want to talk to him?"  
  
"It's complicated," Fiona said. "Quite frankly, we'd prefer to explain the situation while he's here rather then to someone else. It's just, well, complicated."  
  
Martha nodded. "I see..." she said, turning back into the house. She looked back at the League and sighed. "Well, come on in," she said, smiling at them. "The lounge is over there; you wait in it while I find Clark."  
  
Gratefully, the League walked into the lounge and slumped down in the seats. The League-mobile may have been designed with an excellent eye for comfort, but there was nothing better than home comforts sometimes.  
  
After only a couple of minutes, Martha appeared in the room, accompanied by a young man. He was around a foot taller than Martha, with black hair that hung over his forehead in a floppy fringe and blue eyes. His face wasn't strikingly handsome, but it was still fairly attractive, and he gave the definite impression of being a very caring sort of character. He looked like he was in good shape as well.  
  
"Clark Kent?" Bond asked, standing up to shake Clark's hand, along with the rest of the League.  
  
"Yes, that's me," Clark replied, shaking the hands of all five League members. "What can I do for you?"  
  
"We're agents of the British and American Governments, Mr Kent," Bond explained, as the seven of them sat down. "We're interested in enlisting your services to join our team."  
  
Clark and Martha both looked up, a combination of surprise and fear on their faces.  
  
"You know about... about his powers?" Martha asked, sounding slightly scared.  
  
"Yes," Bond replied. "Don't worry, we're not going to manipulate him for our own ends; we just want his help. After all, his powers do make him a valuable asset in a fight, and he's not exactly short on courage either."  
  
"Exactly," the Doctor commented from his seat, where he was lying back with his feet on the desk as though he owned the place, or at least as though nobody would complain. The odd thing was, nobody did. "After all, going up against someone with all his abilities armed only with a piece of kryptonite? It takes a brave man to attempt a stunt like that."  
  
Clark sighed a little. "How do you know this stuff?" he asked the League in general.  
  
Bond shrugged. "Little things, here and there," he said in a casual manner. "Abilities such as yours can't exactly go unnoticed by everybody, no matter how secret you try to be."  
  
"Don't worry; what you can do goes no further than certain agents of the secret services," the Doctor assured him. "Anyway, I assume you're curious as to why we want your help?"  
  
Clark nodded.  
  
"Well, the situation is thus," Bond said, taking over the conversation from the Doctor. "We have a large host of vampire assassins targeting several world leaders. The Governments of America and Britain believe they have traced the assassins to their point of origin, but they need a very unique team to stop them. You, Mr Kent, are one of the people they want on the team; there are only three more left to recruit after you if you accept."  
  
Clark looked around himself briefly, as though trying to take in everything around him, then sighed.  
  
"I'm in," he said. "Just let me call in school to request a leave of absence, and I'll be..."  
  
"Taken care of," the Doctor grinned. "I can access your school's database and have you listed as sick for the next few days. That should be easy enough."  
  
Clark smiled a little. "Just let me pack, and I'll be right with you." He looked over at Martha and hugged her. "Tell Dad I'll be back as soon as I can, OK? I'll be back, I promise."  
  
"I known you will," Martha smiled. "Now, get going, Clark. You have a world to save." 


	8. The Dark Champion

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
Clark stretched a little in his quarters in the 'League-mobile', as his new friends and teammates called it, and glanced out of his window. The view outside was, while not exactly breathtaking, still very impressive; massive buildings, towering high up all around them. Based on what he could see, Clark was prepared to bet that it wasn't Metropolis he was in; more likely New York or Los Angeles.  
  
Just as that thought had finished forming in his mind, however, a sharp knocking on his door interrupted him. Getting out of bed, he pulled a dressing gown over his pyjamas and opened the door.  
  
Standing outside was the woman he recognised as Fiona Brand, the League's 'invisible woman', if he remembered her powers correctly. She was wearing the same outfit he'd seen her in yesterday, except she'd changed into a leather jacket and trousers instead of yesterday's denim ones.  
  
"We're nearly at our destination," she told him, as he blinked a little to allow his eyes to adjust to the light; even he sometimes had trouble with that. "Get dressed fast; we want to present a bit of a professional attitude."  
  
Then she turned around and left him standing in his door.  
  
Shrugging, Clark shut the door and turned towards his wardrobe. At top speed, he might be able to be dressed and with the rest of the League in about a minute.  
  
*****  
  
A couple of minutes later, all six members of the League were standing outside a massive, modern-looking building. It gave the general appearance of being a fairly average law firm, albeit a fairly average and very expensive law firm.  
  
Elektra looked over at Bond with a quizzical glint in her eyes. "Who're we recruiting here?" she asked. "Johnny Cochrane?"  
  
"No, the man we're after is far more talented than that," Bond replied, as the League began to walk towards the door. "He just acquired the law firm as thanks for saving the world, and generally uses it for anything he wants. He and his friends are lawyers in no way but name."  
  
As Bond finished speaking, the League had entered the lobby of the building and began to walk towards the front desk, passing people holding all kinds of papers and other such things. Elektra stared in amazement at one sword that someone was carrying, and the Doctor noted with some interest the large form of some rather impressive-looking scientific equipment.  
  
As for Harry, he briefly winced as he saw someone holding a couple of serpents, prompting a concerned tap on the shoulder from Clark.  
  
"You OK?" he asked his new friend.  
  
Harry nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he said, sounding normal enough now. "It's just, well... I had a bad experience with snakes some years back. Plus, they were the constant symbol of the man who killed my parents; I still get a little edgy around them at first sight."  
  
Clark nodded understandingly.  
  
While they'd been talking, the League had finally arrived at the front desk, where an attractive, if slightly young, brunette was sitting, typing away at a computer. She looked up at the League as they stopped in front of her.  
  
"Can I help you?" she asked politely. Privately, some of the League were amazed at the fact that she was working here; she seemed to be only around seventeen.  
  
However, Bond and the Doctor weren't too bothered by it, apparently. Bond simply continued to talk as though nothing unusual was going on, and the Doctor was acting as though he saw this sort of thing every day.  
  
"Yes, you can," he said. "We're here to speak to Angel. Is he in?"  
  
The girl nodded, and pointed at a nearby elevator. "Just take that up to the top floor," she said. "It'll get you right to his office; he should be there by now." As the League walked away, Clark's heightened hearing picked up something extra that the girl was whispering under her breath. "That is, if he's not busy with my sister..."  
  
*****  
  
After a couple of minutes in the elevator, the League emerged from the elevator into a very comfortable-looking office. It was large, with some wooden panelling on the walls along with some black stonework and a grey carpet, coupled with a TV screen on one wall and a large desk in the centre of the room, with a couple of busts on pedestals beside the window.  
  
There were only two people in the room at present; a man and a woman, both sitting behind the desk. The man was dressed in a black shirt, black trousers and shoes, and a long dark leather duster, and had hair that stuck up in a manner that looked almost natural rather than achieved with gel. The woman was wearing a white top and jeans, with black high-heeled shoes, and she had long blond hair. However, that was all anyone could see, given that to the two were making out on the chair behind the desk in such a manner that their faces were hidden from view.  
  
After a couple of minutes watching this, Clark coughed politely to alert them to the presence of the League.  
  
Instantly, the two of them split apart, looking at the League with a slightly sheepish expression on their faces. Now that their faces were invisible, it could be seen that both of them were extremely good-looking people, baring the lipstick that was smudged all over their faces.  
  
The man was the first one to regain his composure.  
  
"Hi," he said, looking at the League and holding his hand out to the nearest member (It was Fiona). "I'm Angel, the head of this firm. This is Buffy Summers, my vice-president..." he said, trailing off as though unsure how to proceed.  
  
"And your girlfriend?" Fiona asked casually as she shook his hand. "Relax; that bit was rather easy to work out. My name's Fiona Brand, and these are my colleagues, James Bond, Harry Potter, Doctor John Smith, Elektra Natchios and Clark Kent."  
  
"Ah," Buffy said, smiling at them all. "So, what can we do for you?"  
  
"There's not much time to say this, so I'll just say it," Bond said. "We're interested in recruiting Angel's services to save the world."  
  
Angel arched an eyebrow. "Me? Why me?"  
  
"Well, overall we could have gone for either of you," the Doctor put in casually. "After all, you're both superhumanly strong, both highly knowledgeable about various forms of combat, and have a wide knowledge of the occult. It's just that Angel has around two centuries more of it that you have," he said, looking over to Buffy in an almost apologetic manner.  
  
The two of them stared at the Doctor in a state of shock.  
  
"You know?" Buffy gasped out, as though she half-wanted the Doctor to deny it.  
  
"Well, it's not like you even try to keep your activities secret from the world, like the MiB," the Doctor shrugged. "Anyway, right now we have a serious situation with the Dracula class of vampire, and we need your help in our little team."  
  
"Team?" Angel asked, curiously. "What team?"  
  
"Our team," Elektra said, indicating the rest of the League. "A spy, a time traveller, an alien, a wizard, an invisible woman, an alien, and myself, a warrior. As far as we've been able to gather, we're dealing with vampires that you call the 'Dracula-class', and we're going to need your experience to help us out." She shrugged. "Sorry if I'm a little blunt, but I'm really a little bit inexperienced with the whole supernatural thing myself. So, will you help us?"  
  
Angel looked around himself for a couple of minutes, as though evaluating his current life, and then nodded.  
  
"If you'll agree to a condition of mine, I'm in," he said, looking over at Bond.  
  
"The condition being?" Bond asked.  
  
"That, if we're ever dealing with something major, Buffy be called in to help us fight it," Angel said. "Whatever else I may have, I'd rather have her love behind me than any forces you can offer."  
  
"Fair enough," Bond replied, nodding at the vampire. "After all, we already have one reserve member; why not two?"  
  
"Two?" Angel asked as he shook Bond's hand. "Who's the second?"  
  
"My girlfriend, Ginny," Harry put in. "She's a witch. Anyway, we need to get going; we still have two more members to find."  
  
*****  
  
From a rooftop opposite the Wolfram & Hart building, a crouching figure silently watched the League as they walked out of the building and towards the League-mobile. Angel, who was carrying a large bag, now accompanied the League; presumably the bag contained all his weapons and various assorted books on magic and demonology.  
  
Smiling, the figure reached into its coat and pulled out a mobile phone. Dialling a number, he put the phone to his ear and spoke a few short words into it.  
  
"They've got him," the man said, before sitting still for a couple of minutes as the voice on the other end replied.  
  
"The Nivens? Are you sure that's not a little extreme, sir? They're only human, after all," he said, and then had to pull the phone briefly away from his ear as the voice yelled down the line at the man.  
  
"Well, if you insist, sir," he said, after the voice had died down. "I have to admit, I think you're overrating these guys, but that's your opinion." He nodded. "Goodbye, sir."  
  
He terminated the call, and looked down at where the League-Mobile was starting to drive away from outside Wolfram & Hart.  
  
He grinned a little. "Enjoy yourselves while you can, LXG," he said, standing up and flexing his shoulders. "Soon, you shall fall before me."  
  
Then he turned to his right, and leapt right onto the next building.  
  
It was almost thirty feet away from him, and he jumped onto it from a standing position.  
  
Looking back at his former position, he found himself smirking at the power he possessed following his boss performing all those experiments. He had lost his humanity, but what he had become was something even better.  
  
When he fought the League, he looked forward to killing them all. 


	9. The Mutant Thief

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Lady Moon3: Hyde is connected in that man's story, but WHAT he is will have to wait a while...  
  
AN: For those of you wondering what I mean by the 'Dracula' class of vampire, Angel will be explaining it to Clark in this chapter.  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
"So, where's our next member to be found?" Angel asked, as the League drove through the busy streets of Los Angeles.  
  
"Well, according to all reports, somewhere on the outskirts of this city," Bond replied, as he glanced back towards the entertainment room, where most of the League was currently catching a quick break.  
  
From what he could see, it appeared that Harry had managed to find a copy of 'The Matrix Revolutions' among the DVD collection in the room, and was currently watching it along with Elektra, Fiona, and Clark. The Doctor was still driving the League-mobile, while Bond was in the meeting room filling Angel in on the situation they'd be dealing with.  
  
Getting himself back on track, Bond turned to face Angel again. "She's mostly a solo operative, but she has worked in a team on occasion. In fact, that's part of the reason we waited until we'd recruited you to find her; she's someone you know."  
  
*****  
  
"Who?" Angel asked, looking up at Bond. "Bethany? Jheira? Kate?" His expression suddenly lowered, as another option occurred to him. "Please don't say you're after Drusilla."  
  
"No to all of them," Bond replied. "Bethany was considered, but we found someone else who's just as good. We'll be tracking her down last. Right now, we're after someone you met fairly recently; only a couple of moths ago, I believe."  
  
"Wait a minute..." Angel asked, as he briefly sat and thought. Then, inspiration struck him. "Gwen?" he asked, half hoping he was right, and at the same time hoping he wasn't.  
  
"Exactly," Bond said, as he pulled out a file and handed it to Angel. "Miss Raiden's been fairly busy since you last saw her. Take a look."  
  
Angel took the file and glanced over it, curious as to what had happened to the thief since her acquisition of LISA. It wasn't quite what he'd expected, but that was all right; secretly, he'd feared she'd start going on a major thieving spree.  
  
According to the file, while she hadn't completely stopped her career as a thief, she was trying to diversify a bit these days, and was tracking down criminals sometimes, as well as occasionally thwarting the plans of a couple of occult groups she discovered attempting to raise demons. Overall, she'd come a long way from the thief who had tried to steal the Axis of Pythia.  
  
The only question was, would she want to work in a team?  
  
Angel looked up at Bond. "So, do we know where she lives?"  
  
"No," Bond replied. "She's mostly homeless, but signs of her activities have been found in the area we're heading for right now. We're sending you and Clark in after her; in the event of her turning hostile, you two have the best chance of taking her on."  
  
"Right," Angel said, indicating the recreation room, where the League appeared to have reached the part in the movie where Neo fought the Smith- possessed Bane. "Does he know about that?"  
  
"I filled him in on it earlier, yes," Bond replied. "He's fine with it."  
  
"Good," Angel said, as he sat back in chair and stared up at the ceiling. He might as well catch a quick rest before he began the hunt...  
  
*****  
  
"Can I ask you something?"  
  
Angel looked over at Clark, as the two of them walked through one of L.A.'s seedier alleyways. "Sure, go ahead."  
  
"What are you and Buffy?" Clark asked, as they continued walking. "I mean, not meaning to be rude or anything, but, all that stuff the Doctor mentioned you two were capable of... how can you do that?"  
  
Angel sighed. "It's a complicated story, but I'll try to make it quick," he said, as they turned a corner and walked down a second alley. "It starts several thousand years ago, when vampires and demons first came into the world. To stop their spread, a group of sorcerers cast a spell that gave a young woman the strength, speed, and reflexes to go up against them in a fight. They called their creation 'the Slayer', and she proved very effective at her job." Clark nodded, to show that he was following Angel. "Anyway, after she was killed by a demon, a new girl acquired her abilities, and the same thing happened when she was killed, and so on, and so on."  
  
"And Buffy's the current Slayer?" Clark asked. Angel nodded, and the young man continued. "So, what about you?"  
  
"My story's a bit more complex," Angel replied. "I WAS a perfectly ordinary vampire, but in 1898, I killed the favoured daughter of a gypsy clan, and they cursed me with a soul."  
  
"Huh?" Clark asked. "What difference would that make?"  
  
"Vampires- well, my kind of vampire- are demons in a human corpse," Angel explained. "The demon has no conscience by itself, and commits terrible murders to survive. However, in my case, my human soul experiences the guilt of all the crimes my body committed while it was controlled by the demon- and, since my demon was active for almost a hundred a fifty years, that's a lot to feel guilty for."  
  
"Yikes," Clark said, staring at Angel with a new sense of respect. Coping with that much grief... He wasn't sure he could deal with that. "Hey, wait a minute..." he said, as he noticed Angel walk through a beam of sunlight with no ill effect. "Aren't vampires hurt by the sun?"  
  
Angel glanced down, and saw the sun shining on him. He smiled. "Normally, yes, you'd be right- at least, for my lot." He noticed Clark's bemused expression, and mentally checked himself; he shouldn't talk to the kid like he knew everything Angel knew.  
  
"Basically, there are several different kinds of vampires, besides my kind," he explained. "Each race has different strengths and weaknesses, and a couple have remarkably different abilities. The kind that we've been hired to track down, for example, is known as the Dracula class, after the most famous member of their species, while my kind is known as 'the Soulless'- for obvious reasons. We burn up in the sun, have no reflections and are hurt by holy artefacts, but in most other regards we're just enhanced humans; no bats or anything. There's another lot known as 'the Warriors', since they've been at war with a group of werewolves for centuries, who are vulnerable to sunlight but don't have any of the weaknesses of the Soulless, and a fourth group that nobody's given an official classification. Me, I call them 'the Kingdom', since they're ruled by Princes. They have strict rules of honour, and can move at incredible speeds, and aren't hurt by holy artefacts. However, in general they're more like enhanced humans than anything else; guns can kill them, for one thing."  
  
(A.N.- Just to clear things up, the Warrior vampires are the vampires from 'Underworld', and the Kingdom are the vampires from the Sage of Darren Shan, just in case anyone was wondering.)  
  
Clark nodded, obviously intrigued by this new information. However, Angel sensed he was still curious about his immunity to the sun, so decided to continue. "Anyway, recently a spell was cast that banished my demon from my body- before, I've always been keeping it trapped under my soul. As a result, I'm no longer a subject to my kind's normal weaknesses."  
  
"Cool," Clark nodded, before looking around the alley. "So, who are we looking for here? Bond told me you know them, but that's about it."  
  
"I ran into her a couple of times. Her name's Gwen, and she's a thief with the power to generate electricity."  
  
Clark looked up in surprise at that. "How?"  
  
Angel shrugged. "As far as I know, she was born with it. Don't worry; she's never been to Smallville in her life, so she isn't one of your 'Freaks of the Week' that the Doctor told me about."  
  
Clark sighed in relief. "That's good," he said. "I've dealt with enough of them in my time. Besides, who knows what she could do if her powers were created via kryptonite; I'd rather not get hit by THAT kind of lightning."  
  
Angel was about to ask what he meant by that, but then he heard something off to one side that he recognised.  
  
The crackle of electricity.  
  
And, with there being a notable lack anywhere near them of a short- circuiting electrical appliance, the two of them could only come to one conclusion.  
  
Gwen.  
  
"Her?" Clark said, as he glanced over at Angel for confirmation.  
  
Angel nodded. "You go on ahead; I'll catch up."  
  
Clark gave him the thumbs up, and then vanished.  
  
Angel blinked, and then remembered that he'd read in the files that Clark was capable of moving at superhuman speeds, faster even than he ever could.  
  
Sniffing a little, Angel picked up the distinctive scent of Clark's alien blood, and ran after him.  
  
*****  
  
As he ran off, Clark suddenly found himself wondering if this was a good idea. After all, Angel did have more experience with Gwen, and, vampire or not, Clark was still faster than Angel could ever hope to be.  
  
But, on the other hand, they had to catch her before she got away from her current location, and he was the fastest member. Angel's experience wouldn't do them any good if Gwen just vanished.  
  
He rounded a corner, and there she was.  
  
At least, Clark assumed it was Gwen. The woman in question appeared to be a couple of years older than Clark, with long curly brown hair, wearing a skin-tight black outfit that left a long thin line down the centre of her chest exposed. Her hands were both crackling with brilliant blue electricity, and she was standing over a man dressed in some rather odd- looking robes.  
  
"That's enough," she said, looking down at the man. On closer inspection, Clark realised that the man was unconscious, having suffered from a near- fatal electric shock, and it looked like Gwen was prepared to finish the job. "Your time ends now."  
  
"Wait!" Clark yelled, dashing forward so that he was standing in between Gwen and the robed man.  
  
Gwen looked Clark up and down with an appraising glance that looked partly like she was eyeing up for battle and partly like she was eyeing him up for bed. Then she raised her eyes to look him straight in the eye.  
  
"You are?" she asked him, in a voice that sounded vaguely posh with a hint of a street- born accent.  
  
"Clark Kent," Clark replied, briefly glancing back in the direction he'd come from to see if there was any sign of Angel. There wasn't, so he turned back to face Gwen. "I'm a member of a team of unique men and women set up by the British and American to thwart a team of vampire assassins. We want you to be a member."  
  
"Really?" Gwen asked, raising one eyebrow. "And what, exactly, can you do that makes you extraordinary?"  
  
"Well... this?" Clark asked, zipping around behind Gwen before she could even blink, and then lifting her up by her foot with one hand.  
  
"Whoa! What the...?" Gwen said, looking down at Clark in amazement.  
  
Clark grinned up at her. "Is that extraordinary enough for you?" he asked, as he lowered her down to the ground again.  
  
"Well, it convinced me," a voice said from behind them both. Glancing behind him, Clark smiled with relief as he saw Angel walking towards them, looking fairly casual.  
  
"Angel?" Gwen asked, looking at the vampire with a slightly surprised look on her face. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I'm one of Clark's teammates," Angel explained, smiling at Gwen casually. Evidently, either he didn't care about the robed man behind them, or hadn't noticed, or had noticed and knew that the man wouldn't die because of it. "Sorry we can't fill you in on the situation in more detail right now, Gwen, but we have to get going; if you accept, there's still one final member to recruit, and she's extremely difficult to track down."  
  
*****  
  
Gwen looked between the two men- well, the vampire and the alien, really- for a minute or two. Then she shrugged.  
  
"What the hell?" she said, as she placed her arms around their shoulders. "It might be fun."  
  
*****  
  
Angel grinned as the three of them started to walk back towards the League- mobile. Eight down, and one to go.  
  
Little did he know what they'd have to go through before that one would join them... 


	10. The Solo Psychic

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Lady Moon3: It's Eilidh, and here she is. Oh, and in regard to the person 'connected' to Hyde, he'll be more involved in the next chapter.  
  
Sean Malloy-1: Here it is; hope I didn't keep you waiting.  
  
Lunawolf: Here's the new character, and I hope you like her...  
  
AN: Eilidh's origin is ALL my own idea; nobody else's. So don't go looking for background information on her, because what's up here is all there's going to be. Anyway, enjoy.  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
"So," Gwen said, as she sat at the table of the League-mobile, looking around at her new colleagues, "Who's our final member, and what's she capable of?"  
  
Having returned to the League-mobile with Gwen, Clark and Angel had been informed that the League would be holding a meeting to discuss how best to track down their remaining member. Having set the League-mobile to 'automatic pilot', the Doctor had joined the others at the main table, where Gwen had just kicked off the discussion.  
  
In reply, Bond picked up one of the files beside him, opened it out, and spread its contents out on the table in front of him. He then picked up a photograph from the mass of papers in front of him, and showed to the rest of the League.  
  
It showed a young woman, apparently in her late teens, wearing black shoes, back trousers and a pink long-sleeved top, with shoulder-length blonde hair and greenish-brown eyes. She had an attractive face, and gave the impression that she cared about things in general.  
  
"Eilidh Wilson," Bond explained, as the League looked at the picture. "She's a psychic, although apparently it isn't natural; it occurred when she suffered a near-fatal electric shock while conducting a science experiment."  
  
"How could that made her psychic?" Fiona asked, looking up at Bond curiously.  
  
"Apparently, she had traces of some kind of chemical on her hands when she received the shock in question," Bond explained. "What the chemical was is unclear, but it somehow resulted in the electrical charges in her brain being boosted to a far greater degree than is normal in the human brain. The result was her acquiring the powers of telepathy and telekinesis, as well as the ability to generate mental illusions in the minds of anyone she wished to."  
  
"Useful little stunt," Harry commented, glancing up at Bond. "So, what makes her so difficult to track down?"  
  
"She's generally... secretive with her abilities," Bond explained. "Every time she saves someone's life or gives them a hand, she then uses her telepathy to erase their memories of her visit to them. Only strong-willed characters have ever managed to retain their memories after her tweaks with their minds; that, coupled with some odd occurrences that have gone on in certain areas, are the only clues we have that she even exists."  
  
"And you're sure that's enough?" Clark asked. "How do we even know it's her? I mean, if nobody remembers her helping them, she could be anyone."  
  
"Little things," Bond replied. "I would tell you, but there are certain details I've been told to keep to myself."  
  
"Such as where these assassins we're after are coming from?" Fiona inquired in a casual manner, although it was fairly clear that she was a little frustrated.  
  
"No, that's not something I need to keep from you," Bond replied. "I simply felt that I should wait until we're all here to tell you. But, if you want to know now, I suppose I might as well let you know."  
  
Fiona looked at the spy for a couple of minutes, and then shook her head.  
  
"No," she said simply. "If you don't think it's TIME to tell us something... well, that's different. I'm prepared to wait a while." Then she got back to business. "So, how do we track someone who can read people's minds?"  
  
"With my help," Angel said, looking up.  
  
"Pardon?" Elektra asked, looking over at her friend. "What makes you the best one qualified for the job?"  
  
"An interesting little quirk of being a vampire, as you know, is the lack of a reflection- at least, in some cases," Angel said, as he settled back into his chair. "What you probably didn't know is that, as far as telepaths are concerned, the same thing applies to our thoughts; they're present, but they don't make a 'reflection', for lack of a better term, to be revealed to the telepath."  
  
"Neat trick," Gwen said, glancing over at the vampire. Then she turned to face Bond, as a thought suddenly occurred to her. "How do we find her?"  
  
Bond smiled. "That's easy enough; we've developed a device to track down psychic powers being used. It's not powerful enough to give us an accurate location, but it does allow us to pinpoint her to a certain city."  
  
"Which is?" Harry asked.  
  
Bond sighed. "Las Vegas."

* * *

A couple of hours later, the League were looking around in wonder at the brilliant lights and casinos that were currently surrounding them. With the exceptions of Angel and Bond, none of them had visited the place before, and in Bond's case it had been mostly for business purposes. Some of the League were wishing they could get out and enjoy the nightlife of the city, but they all knew that they had to practical; they were still one member away from being a complete team, and they had to focus on finding their last member.  
  
"So, what's the plan?" Harry asked, as the League sat in the front seat of the League-mobile while the Doctor drove them through Vegas. "I mean, I follow that Angel's going to be tracking Eilidh, but what do we do then?"  
  
"Her powers only extend to around ten metres away from her in every direction," the Doctor explained. "Theoretically, we could have a couple of us behind Angel, so long as we're within visual distance of him and not within sensing distance of Eilidh. With those numbers, we should manage to prevent her from running away from us before we give her our proposal. However, it's unlikely she'll attack Angel if he poses no threat to her, so he'll just call us when he's started talking to her." He smiled absent- mindedly, as though at some long-distant memory. "If only everyone was that understanding..." he whispered to himself, so low that only Angel and Clark could hear him.  
  
"The plan's sensible enough, I suppose," Fiona said, from where she was lying back in her seat. "So, where will we be starting our search for her?"  
  
"Just here," the Doctor said, as he stopped in front of the Tropicana casino.  
  
Angel looked up at it, and gulped.  
  
"Um, why are we starting from here?" he asked, nervously looking over at Bond. "I had a bad experience with these guys a year ago; I'd rather not go in for a repeat performance."  
  
"Oh, that incident with peoples destinies getting stolen?" Bond asked. "We know about that. In fact, that's why we came here; it seems like the kind of place that Eilidh would be keeping an eye on. We've received rumours of some demonic activity here, and Eilidh apparently knows about it as well. Research shows that this casino is one of the major hotspots for their activities, so it seems as good a place as any to start."  
  
Harry coughed to attract attention. "Sorry to interrupt, James," he said, holding up one hand. "but I'm a little confused. What's the problem with this casino?"  
  
"They made a business of stealing people's destinies and selling them on the magical black market a year or so ago," Bond explained. "They briefly acquired Angel's, but his friends managed to get it back, as well as return everyone else's destinies to them."  
  
"Ah," Harry said, looking back at the vampire. "That mustn't have been good."  
  
"It wasn't," Angel replied. He left it at that, and Harry didn't push his luck.  
  
A loud, rapid ping suddenly emitted from down on the dashboard. The Doctor looked down at it, and then glanced back at Angel, grinning as he spoke.  
  
"She's in this area," he said, smiling. "The detector can't pinpoint her exact location, but it can detect when she's getting close to us, and she is right now."  
  
Angel grinned. "Right," he said. "Then I'd best be off."  
  
Opening the door of the League-mobile, he stepped out onto the ground and glanced back at the others.  
  
"I'll call you when I've tracked her down," he said, as the Doctor shut the door. "Just get somewhere quiet and don't attract any attention!" he called out, as the car drove away, leaving him standing there.

* * *

Looking around, Angel noticed with relief that nobody had really paid him or the League- mobile much attention; probably they'd mistaken it for some kind of street act. Not the most plausible of explanations, Angel knew, but humanity had the strangest ability to deceive itself when facing something that was thought to be impossible by the general public.  
  
Turning around, Angel walked towards a nearby side street, and looked around from there. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but, since Eilidh should be there soon, he might as well wait around.  
  
Looking around the crowd, he found himself grateful that his longing for blood was far less powerful than it had once been; in this crowd, coupled with the fact that he'd not really had anything to eat for a while, he might have had some difficulty controlling his urges.  
  
Just then, he noticed a flash of blond hair. Looking after it, he noticed a young woman, around the height that Eilidh was according to the files, following a tall man in a long trench coat with a large floppy hat pulled down hard over his head. Leaving the alleyway, he began to walk after her, staying near to her so that he could see her distinctive hair and coat, but not so near that she'd realise he was following her, especially due to her inability to read his thoughts.  
  
As he followed her, he briefly found himself wondering who she was following. Then again, in this line of work, maybe 'what' would be a more accurate expression...  
  
He looked at the figure in front of Eilidh, trying to see if he could make out anything unusual about it. It being from the back, he wasn't exactly able to see much, but he did notice that the hat was slightly bulging out to the sides, although the creature didn't look any taller than the normal human. However, it was walking in a fairly rapid manner, despite the fact that it didn't seem to be making any great effort at speed.  
  
Wait a minute... Angel thought to himself, as the creature turned around a corner and began to head down a small street to the side of the Tropicana, followed closely by Eilidh. Horns in that particular position, unremarkable in height but fairly fast... it reminded him of something...  
  
Then, one of the creature's legs briefly became visible underneath the trench coat. The leg in question was the colour of normal human skin, as far as Angel could see in the bad light, but it was covered in scales...  
  
Angel gulped. He knew of only one demon that fit that kind of category; the mouthless demon that had once nearly driven Buffy insane by allowing her to read minds.  
  
(A.N. The demon in question appeared in an episode of Buffy's third season ('Earshot'), just to let you know.)  
  
He quickly flashed over what he remembered of that species; if killed by a living being, the being absorbed a certain aspect of the demon, but if killed by a vampire, nothing would happen.  
  
Angel quickened his pace while trying to remain quiet. He had to stop Eilidh before she confronted that demon; there was no telling what the effects on her would be if she took it out with her mental powers. Quite what the demon's telepathy would do to her when she already had that power Angel didn't know, but he didn't want to risk it.  
  
Besides, the aspect of the demon that infected Eilidh may not be internal, and he was sure she wouldn't want to be covered with scales, just as an example.  
  
Before Angel could race on ahead, Eilidh suddenly stopped walking. Instantly, the demon was lifted up off the ground and thrown directly into the nearby wall. As the creature began to slightly stir, Eilidh walked over to it, and then raised one arm to her side. A large crowbar flew directly to her hand, and she raised it above her head.  
  
"This is for the woman you killed," she stated simply.  
  
Then she began to bring the bar down.  
  
"NO!" Angel yelled, charging forward and grabbing the bar. Before Eilidh could react to his attack, the demon had kicked out and knocked them both back. As the demon got up, Angel noticed that at least he'd been correct in his guess; the demon's lack of a mouth proved that. He just hoped that he'd live to use that piece of information.  
  
"Great job!" Eilidh said, looking back at Angel with anger in her eyes. "I could have taken him out!"  
  
"And become infected," Angel said, morphing into his vampiric countenance. He may no longer have Angelus within him, but he could still shift into his more powerful form when he wanted to. "Just stay down; I'll take this guy," he said, as Eilidh stared at his new face in a combination of horror and awe.  
  
Before she could react, Angel had jumped back up to his feet and had charged towards the demon, knocking it back into the wall again. It still wasn't quite down, but it wouldn't be moving for a couple of seconds. Remembering the arrangement with the others, Angel took the opportunity to pull out his cell phone and dial the number of the League-mobile, which the Doctor had programmed into the phones of the entire League during their spare time. Fortunately, it was fully charged up, and the phone was answered in a couple of rings.  
  
"Yeah?" Harry asked from the other end of the phone. "What's the situation?"  
  
"Demon!" Angel yelled, as his opponent got back up. Punching it as hard as he could, he knocked it further down the alleyway, into an abandoned warehouse. Glancing back, he saw the reason for him having hit it back so far; Eilidh was standing up with one hand out in front of her. Evidently she'd used her powers to knock it back. Angel nodded in thanks, and turned his attention back to Harry. "Eilidh and I have it under control, but get here as soon as possible, OK? We might need backup. We're in an alleyway down the side of the Tropicana."  
  
"We'll be there soon," Harry replied. "Do what you can in the meantime, OK?"  
  
Angel grinned. "Of course," he replied, smiling. Then he terminated the call and looked towards the demon. It was getting up, but didn't look like it would come charging towards Angel and Eilidh any time soon.  
  
Glancing back, Angel noticed that Eilidh was running towards the demon, with an expression on her face that was so focused that, if looks could kill, the demon would probably be dead.  
  
"Can't let you have all the fun!" she said to him as she passed him. Shrugging, Angel tore on after her.  
  
"Just don't touch it to kill it!" he yelled at Eilidh as he drew level with her. "I'll attend to that!"  
  
Eilidh looked like she was about to say something to that, but before she could get a word out, the two of them were in front of the demon.  
  
Looking like it would roar if it had a mouth to do so, the demon charged at the vampire and the psychic, tackling them both to the ground. It moved to scratch Eilidh on the face, but as soon as it came in contact with her face, it yanked its hand back as though it was burned. Taking advantage of the strike, Angel kicked out at the demon, leapt up onto his feet, grabbed the demon by the head, and twisted its head around.  
  
The demon slumped to the ground in a heap.  
  
Angel glanced back at Eilidh. "Why didn't it scratch you?" he asked her, indicating the demon.  
  
Eilidh shrugged. "Basic trick. I just made the demon think that my face was on fire, and it couldn't back away from me fast enough." Then she looked at Angel curiously. "And while we're on the subject of powers, what are you?"  
  
Realizing he still had his vampire's face on, Angel morphed back into his human countenance.  
  
"Sorry about that," he said to her. "My name's Angel. I'm... well, I'm a vampire."  
  
"You're a WHAT?!" Eilidh asked, glancing around herself as though looking for a stake.  
  
"Hey, I won't try and drink your blood or anything," Angel protested. Eilidh stopped with her glances and looked at him curiously. "I don't kill innocent people. I'm a good guy; in fact, I'm a member of a team."  
  
Eilidh looked curiously at Angel. Then she blinked and stepped back in shock.  
  
"You... you don't have any thoughts..." she said, sounding horrified.  
  
Angel groaned. "Look, it's not that I'm pretty much an instinctive person or anything," he said. "It's simply that, as a vampire, my thoughts create no reflection for you to read."  
  
"It's true," a voice said from beside them. "After all, he doesn't have any reflection in a mirror; why should his thoughts be any different?"  
  
Angel blinked. "Fiona," he said, looking at where he thought the voice had come from. He had to admit something; if this was Fiona being invisible, it was very effective. Normally he was able to smell where someone was, even if he couldn't see them, but here he could only just hear her heartbeat.  
  
He frowned at that. Only just? "You're not ill or anything, right?" he asked, looking where he thought she was currently standing.  
  
"If you're worried about my health because my heart seems to have a faint beat, then no, I haven't got a heart problem," Fiona said, as she popped into view in front of Eilidh. "It's just that, well, my skin seems to be a bit stronger whenever I'm invisible, so its vibrations aren't as easy to hear as when you can see me."  
  
Eilidh blinked a little. Smiling assuringly, Fiona held out her hand. "I'm Fiona Brand," she said casually. "I work with Angel."  
  
"Really?" Eilidh said, taking the offered hand and shaking it. "On this... team he mentioned?"  
  
"Yeah," Fiona said, glancing over towards Angel. "I assume you've guessed that I was hanging around all the time?"  
  
"Well, I guessed as much," Angel replied. "After all, no sense in having only one of us to follow her."

* * *

"Wait a minute," Eilidh said, holding up one hand. "What's with all this mask and mystery? Why are you guys so desperate to track me down?"  
  
Angel groaned a little. "Damn!" he whispered to himself, before turning to face Eilidh. "Sorry about that; forgot to mention why I'm here. We're interested in recruiting your services in our team."  
  
"Really?" Eilidh asked, sounding slightly curious. "Who else is on the team?"  
  
"We are!" a voice said from the door that led to the alleyway. Glancing back, Angel and Fiona saw the rest of the League heading towards, Clark apparently moving at normal speed to allow the rest of them time to catch up. Apparently, Bond was the one who'd spoken, given that he was leading the rest.  
  
"Oh," Eilidh said, as the League gathered into the open block. "Well... interesting collection of people. What's the situation?"  
  
"Simply put?" Elektra asked. "In a nutshell, vampire assassins are targeting world leaders, and the British and American Governments are forming a team to stop them. We're eight of the team's members; they want you to be the ninth."  
  
"I see..." Eilidh said. She looked around the warehouse at the League, and then looked directly at Bond. "Vampires, huh?"  
  
"As far as we know," Bond replied. "There may be others, but the vampires are our main concern. So, will you join us, or not?"  
  
"I'm very much afraid you won't be alive long enough for that to be an issue," another voice said. 


	11. The First Battle

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission. The same applies for Sarah and Jeremy Nivern (Although Sarah's the only one of the two I like) and Gash  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Lady Moon3: Yeah, that guy's here, along with two others who owe their entire abilities to Hyde. Hope they live up to your expectations.  
  
Kaudrim: Valid point, and you're perfectly entitled to that view. However, I like to include a few film characters as well, given that they have their own fair share of things in the modern day and age. By the way... no offence intended, but why are you calling Doctor Who a literary character? He started out on a TV show.  
  
Lunawolf: A couple of them are vamps, but the others... well, read on and see.  
  
AN: This chapter's a lot longer than the others, but it just turned out that way. Anyway, hope it meets with your approval.  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
Spinning around, all nine League members (Eilidh included, at least for the moment) quickly scanned the warehouse for the source of the voice. It wasn't hard to spot him. Standing a few feet behind them, between them and the now-closed door, was a man well over six feet tall, with black hair, long fingernails, and red eyes. He was dressed from head-to-foot in dark blue, and his shirt bulged out slightly around his shoulder blades. He had a small glass phial in his left hand, which he was turning around and around as he looked at the League.  
  
He was surrounded by eight figures, all of which appeared fairly capable of putting up an excellent fight when the need arose.  
  
Two of them were large, reaching almost seven feet in height, and their entire upper bodies were covered in ridiculously huge muscles.  
  
The two beside them looked fairly normal, but the razor-sharp fangs poking over their lips gave away their vampire nature fairly easily. (Angel noted with relief that the vampires were Warriors rather than Draculas, but it still wasn't that much comfort.) They had some powerful-looking automatic weapons on their hips,  
  
The next two along the line appeared to just be extremely muscular and extremely hairy men at first glance, but a closer look revealed that they had the heads of dogs, with extremely large teeth to go with them. They were standing on their hind legs, and looked like they just wanted to leap on the League straight away.  
  
The last two were rather unimpressive when compared to the others. They were a man and a woman in around their early twenties, dressed in long black leather coats and black costumes that made them look like bikers, and had several weapons strapped around their waists. They had a similarity to each other that gave them the appearance of being brother and sister, except that the woman had brown hair and the man black. The man had stitches across his right eyebrow, but otherwise appeared to be in good health.  
  
Unable to reach for his gun, Bond simply stepped forward.  
  
"I normally prefer to know people I'm about to fight," he said, looking at the first man with a determined glint in his eye. "So, you are?"  
  
"Sorry for forgetting to make the introductions," the man replied. "My name is Gash. These are my trained assassins- the werewolves are Cerberus and Argus, the vampires are Karsano and Vladimir, the Hydes are Janus and Harvey, and the assassins are Sarah and Jeremy Nivern. You nine are, I believe, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." He grinned. "By the way, why do you call yourselves Gentlemen when there are four women in your team?"  
  
"Well, you see, the reason for that is that nobody's been able to come up with something that's less gender specific and has the right kind of ring to it," the Doctor replied, having pulled out his yo-yo and started to playing with it while looking over the nine people in front of him. "I'm working on it, but we'll call ourselves 'Gentlemen' until something better comes along."  
  
"Really?" Gash replied, looking with a slight degree of confusion at the Doctor. Then he passed it aside and looked at the League. "You have been hired to stop my master. That, of course, none of us can permit. Therefore, I come to you all with a basic offer; join us, or you die."  
  
"And if we beat you?" Gwen asked.  
  
"You shall still die," Gash replied. "It shall simply be in a different manner; you cannot hope to guess what it is."  
  
"Would it have anything to do with the extremely basic time rings that are clasped to the wrists of Mr and Miss Nivern and yourself?" the Doctor inquired casually.  
  
Gash glanced down at his wrist, where the bronze-coloured bracelet, complete with a couple of blinking buttons, was clearly visible.  
  
"All right," he said, looking up at the Doctor. "So you have some scientific talents. It won't help you survive the next few minutes." He looked back at his various... associates, for lack of a better term. "Kill them."  
  
As the attackers stepped forward, Harry whipped out his wand, pointed it at Sarah, yelled out, "_Impedimentia_!" and spun around until his wand had hit Jeremy.  
  
Instantly, all the attackers were completely paralyzed, looks of rage frozen on their faces.  
  
Harry looked down at his wand. "Well, that was lucky," he said, looking back at the rest of the League.  
  
Elektra spoke for them all. "What... what just happened?" she asked Harry.  
  
"Oh, it's simple enough; I just cast the Impediment Jinx, a spell that freezes anything it hits in one position for a brief amount of time," Harry explained. "The spinning aspect of the thing was a move of desperation on my part, but it's served its purpose of buying us some time." He then turned back towards their would-be killers, twirling his wand as though waiting for them to get moving again.  
  
"So, now that we have the time, does anyone have any idea what he is?" Fiona asked, indicating Gash, who had remained standing while the others had started to walk forward. "Angel? Eilidh? You guys got anything?"  
  
Angel shook his head, but Eilidh nodded.  
  
"I took a brief scan of his mind after Harry froze him," she said. "His thoughts are extremely confusing- I think that he may be a little insane- but apparently, he believes himself to have been given the ability to fly as a result of genetic engineering."  
  
"He can fly?" Bond asked, looking over at Eilidh. "How? Where are his wings?"  
  
"Under his shirt," Clark said. When everyone looked back at him, he shrugged. "Hey, one of my powers _is_ X-ray vision, you know. I just took a quick peek through his shirt and chest, and there they were."

* * *

"Right then," Bond said, pulling out his Walther and pulling out a few bullets for it. He looked over at Angel. "Will bullets work on the vampires?" he asked casually.  
  
"They should," Angel replied, checking over the vampires briefly before glancing back towards Bond. "These Warrior vampires may lack some of my more annoying weaknesses- the need for an invitation in order to enter a building, the weakness to holy objects and so on- but they aren't as dangerous as me in one regard; bullets will hurt them, but it just takes a great deal to kill them."  
  
"Right," Bond said, as he slid the bullets into his gun. "In that case, I'll take one of the vampires; Angel, you handle the other." He glanced over at Elektra. "What are your daggers made of?"  
  
"Metal, but they're edged with silver," Elektra replied.  
  
"Right, then you handle one of the werewolves," Angel put in. "Harry, you take the other. Fiona, Doctor, you two had better handle the assassins. The two large ones..." He paused. "What are those things anyway?"  
  
"Gash called them 'Hydes'," the Doctor put in. "Based on the fact that one of the original League's members was Edward Hyde, I assume that someone has managed to find the formula for the serum that created him." He looked over at Clark. "Do you think you can handle him?"  
  
"I'll try," Clark promised.  
  
"I'll handle the other," Gwen said quickly. She glanced over towards Eilidh. "Think you can deal with that Gash character?"  
  
"I'll try," Eilidh promised. "Hey, whatever he is, he still has a mind. As long as he has that, I can take him on; I'll just need a bit of time to prepare."  
  
"Get ready!" Harry yelled, as he noticed Gash's fingers twitch. "They're coming out of it!"  
  
"Right," Bond said, as the League took up positions facing their selected opponents; the Doctor and Jeremy, Fiona and Sarah, Eilidh and Gash, Bond and Vladimir, Gwen and Janus, Clark and Harvey, Elektra and Cerebrus, Harry and Argus, and Angel and Karsano.  
  
"Good luck!" Clark called out...  
  
Just as the opponents started moving again.

* * *

The League dived into action as soon as their opponents seemed fully conscious of what was going on. It was fairly easy in some regards; the Doctor, Fiona, Clark and Angel had enough strength to tackle their selected opponents to the ground and shove them off to the side fairly quickly, but the others had to resort to less direct ways to knock down their opponents.  
  
Bond shot the vampire in the stomach, knocking it back a few feet.  
  
Harry muttered '_Expelliarmus_!', and the werewolf found itself some feet back.  
  
Elektra slashed at her werewolf and forced it back a few feet.  
  
Eilidh and Gwen knocked their opponents back with electricity and telekinetic energy respectively.  
  
With their opponents a bit more spread-out now, the League were able to target them individually with greater ease. Instantly, the warehouse became a scene of conflict, with each League member struggling desperately with their selected opponent.

* * *

Bond found out fairly quickly what Angel had meant by Warrior vampires being able to take a great deal of punishment; he'd shot Vladimir with four bullets already, each of them around the chest area, and the vampire was still coming, admittedly slightly slower than he'd been moving earlier.  
  
Deciding to change tactics, Bond put his gun into his pocket (He didn't have the time to put the gun into its holster), and kicked the vampire in the head. If the vampire had been human, it would probably have gained a broken jaw from the kick, but since it wasn't, it was only dazed slightly.  
  
Bond groaned a little. He'd rarely faced an opponent that was definitely stronger than he was; most of his foes were better than him in some areas, but weaker in others. Vladimir, it would appear, was neither of the above.  
  
Whipping out his gun again, Bond prayed he could hold it back long enough for one of the others to help him out.

* * *

"Knock it off!" Janus roared at Gwen, as she used her breaking-and-entering training to keep one step ahead of the man mountain's punches, coupled with a few blasts of electricity to push her further up into the air. "You can't fight me! I'm pure! You're not! You don't matter to me at all!"  
  
"Then how come I'M the one leading this dance?" Gwen inquired casually, as she leapt back in a spiral to land some feet away from Janus. However, she was groaning about this whole situation inwardly; how do you stop something that can punch through solid metal walls?

* * *

Angel was finding Karsano to be a more difficult challenge than he'd expected. Normally Warrior vampires weren't much of a match for a vampire of his age and kind, but this guy could match him almost blow for blow. On the plus side, his foe didn't have any guns, so at least he wasn't obviously outmatched.  
  
He just wished the odds were a bit more even

* * *

_Dammit_! Harry thought to himself, as he ran from Argus as fast as he could. He would have used another spell on the werewolf, but he couldn't think of anything to say of the top of his head. The only option available to him was Avada Kedavra, and after his final fight with Voldemort, he'd made a vow to himself to never use that spell again.  
  
If he didn't come up with a decent spell soon, he made a private vow to resign from the League; why have a wizard on the team when he couldn't get a decent spell to stop a rampaging werewolf?

* * *

"Well, you're pretty good," Sarah commented, as she faced the Doctor. "It's been a while since I faced a foe who could knock me down." Then her face hardened. "But I have never met the man who could best me in one-on-one combat." Reaching underneath her long leather coat, she pulled out two swords and tossed one to the Doctor, who caught it with a graceful ease. "Care to try me?"  
  
In reply, the Doctor threw his scarf over his shoulder and held his sword out in front of him. "En garde?" he asked politely.  
  
Then Sarah leapt on him, bringing the sword towards his face. Quickly, the Doctor bought the blade up, blocking Sarah's blow.  
  
Spinning the sword, the Doctor went on the offensive, driving Sarah back despite his obvious disadvantage of rather cumbersome clothing. Trying to take his mind of the struggles of his friends, the Doctor forced himself to concentrate on Sarah.  
  
One mistake, and he was in trouble...

* * *

"Shit!" Elektra whispered, as she only barely managed to deflect a slash from Cerberus's claws. If her memory was accurate, in all the stories she'd heard about werewolves as a child, anyone cut by a werewolf became one themselves, and she wasn't ready to become _that_ extraordinary.  
  
_I'll settle with being a flashy pair of daggers for the moment, thank you very much_, she thought up to whoever would be listening. Then, seeing an opportunity, she stabbed Cerberus on his left arm, drawing blood and tearing muscle.  
  
Howling in agony, Cerberus reeled back, allowing Elektra to get a few feet away from the deranged wolf. She need a bit of a breather to come up with a better plan of attack before she did anything stupid.  
  
Unfortunately, as Cerberus tore her dagger out and threw it aside, it would appear that just one stab wouldn't get her the time she needed.

* * *

Launching a powerful punch at Harvey's chest, Clark was surprised when the blow only knocked the Hyde back a few feet; normally, when he hit something that hard, they were out of the fight at once.  
  
These Hydes were _tough_. He doubted he'd taken on anything capable of taking his most powerful blows without sustaining some kind of bruise, but all that had happened here was the Hyde had been knocked back for a few seconds.  
  
As it got back up, Clark shifted into top speed, and began to dash to different locations all around his opponent. If nothing else, he might be able to confuse the thing long enough to come up with a better strategy.

* * *

"So... Gash, huh?" Eilidh said, standing in front of the mysterious man, her arms in a combat position despite the fact that she mostly never touched her opponents when fighting them. "Just out of curiosity, what kind of name is that?"  
  
Gash grinned at her. "An apt one," he said, as he opened the phial in his hand and swallowed its contents. He then raised his hands back in a manner that reminded Eilidh of something she'd seen in a trailer for the film X- Men 2. What character had done that pose again?  
  
Oh yeah... she recalled hearing somewhere that the woman was called Lady Deathstrike. Why was Gash taking up that particular stance...?  
  
Then his fingernails extended. Looking up at his face, Eilidh saw that it had gone from its formally handsome appearance to be disfigured by some extremely sharp teeth and a rapidly protruding nose, along with rising ears.  
  
Wait a minute... Eilidh shook her head. Had she just been thinking that a guy who was trying to kill her was _handsome_? She didn't have the time for that!  
  
Looking back at Gash, she noted that, not only was he growing hair, but his shirt had broken to reveal the large brown wings on his back, resembling an eagle's. Grinning a little, he spread his arms wide.  
  
Eilidh gulped. He almost looked like the werewolves that Harry and Elektra were trying to stop, baring the wings and the larger muscles. Come to that, the muscles resembled the muscles of those guys that Clark and Elektra were fighting...  
  
_Oh,_ shit, Eilidh thought to herself, as the reason for Gash's chaotic thoughts became clear.  
  
Not only had he been genetically engineered to be capable of flight, but he was a werewolf that had been mutated with the Hyde serum to boot.  
  
As he leapt towards her, Eilidh barely managed to erect a psychic force field in time to prevent him scratching her. At the same time, she was trying to come up with a decent defence against this guy; based on what she remembered of _The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde_, the serum gave the drinker a second personality to go with his new body.  
  
Would her abilities actually work against a guy with double personalities?  
  
Given that Gash didn't seem to be exactly sane in either persona, would that make any difference?

* * *

Fiona winced a little as Jeremy slashed at her with one of the rather deadly-looking daggers that was part of her arsenal. This assassin was proving a bit more challenging than she'd assumed at first; Fiona had hoped that, given that she'd struck the first blow, she'd have been able to finish Jeremy off without having to resort to invisibility. However, as it was becoming apparent, there was no way she'd be able to stop this guy without turning invisible, and it would appear that she wouldn't get the chance to change any time soon.  
  
(A.N. Just to explain things here, Fiona needs to concentrate on turning invisible for a couple of seconds before she can actually change; it's not the kind of thing she can do at the drop of a hat.)  
  
Jeremy smirked a little as the former scientist stood opposite him, clutching her wounded arm. "You know, this is really a little anticlimactic," he said, as he spun the dagger around in her hand before sliding it back into his belt. "I was expecting that a member of the legendary League of Extraordinary Gentlemen would put up more of a fight than a couple of hard blows in the early stages of the fight. Honestly, what made you think you ever qualified as one of them?"  
  
Fiona ground her teeth together at that comment. Looking up at Jeremy, she grinned slightly at the assassin.  
  
"You want me to show you what makes me extraordinary?" she asked casually, as though the two of them were discussing what to wear to a party. "Then try this!"  
  
She launched a powerful punch at Jeremy's head. Just as she'd anticipated, Jeremyducked underneath her fist, allowing Fiona to make her real move; a kick, aimed directly at the side of Jeremy's head.  
  
It didn't do as much damage as it might have done (Fiona missed the pressure point of the skull and hit his ear instead), but it still served its purpose. Tough or not, Jeremy couldn't take a blow that hard and remain conscious.  
  
He collapsed to the ground in heap. Fiona wasn't arrogant enough to think that the assassin was down; she hadn't even kicked him that hard anyway. All she needed was a couple of seconds to focus, and...  
  
Bingo.  
  
She could see through her eyelids.  
  
She was invisible.  
  
"Oh, Jeeeremmmmy?" she said, in a mockingly sweet voice. "Care to try me now?"  
  
Looking up from the floor, Jeremy looked up at where Fiona was currently standing, and blinked in surprise.  
  
"What the..." he asked, sounding a little scared. "Where are you?"  
  
"Right here," Fiona replied, grinning a little as she walked around to stand behind her opponent. It was at times like this that she was grateful she wasn't like the original League's invisible man; she wasn't sure how she'd manage to fight someone while she was completely naked. "Tell me, do you think I'm so pathetic now?"  
  
Jeremy grinned a little as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of high-tech goggles. "Yes, actually," he replied, as he slid the goggles onto his eyes. "You see, Im Ho Tep- my boss- guessed that one of your team would be invisible, so he had these specially designed to deal with you."  
  
"Pardon?" Fiona asked.  
  
"They're infra-red goggles," Jeremy explained. Then he tapped a button on the side of the goggles, looked back, and grinned. "I can see you."  
  
Whipping out a gun, he fired it directly at Fiona. Fiona ducked, and the bullet only hit her arm. It hurt slightly, but didn't draw blood.  
  
"What the...?" Jeremy said, looking up at Fiona, the contempt that had been on his face so far being replaced with a very different expression.  
  
Fear.  
  
Fiona grinned at the shocked assassin. "What I lack in reflection, I make up for in resilience," she informed the assassin, smiling at his steadily more horrified expression. "Now, where were we? Oh yes; I was kicking your ass."  
  
Then she launched another kick at Jeremy's head. This one, rather than knock Jeremy down, knocked the infra-red goggles off his face, where they shattered on the ground. While Jeremy was still reeling from the shock, Fiona launched a punch at his stomach, knocking the jerk down to the ground, gasping for air to replace what had been knocked out by the blow. A quick kick to the head, and Jeremy was out of it.  
  
Crouching down beside the man, Fiona picked up Jeremy's left wrist, where the thing that the Doctor had called a 'Time Ring' was clasped. Pulling it off, Fiona slipped it into her pocket. Once they'd dealt with these assassins, it might be useful to have some kind of clue available for them to look at.  
  
Quickly looking around at the other League members, Fiona noted that Bond appeared to be having the most difficulty with his opponent; a vampire, if she remembered correctly.  
  
Looking to her left, she noticed a shattered wooden box, with several pointy wooden sticks lying around it.  
  
Perfect.  
  
Picking the largest stick up, Fiona turned towards Bond and Vladimir and charged.

* * *

Before Bond had realised what was happening, Vladimir had been impaled by a floating piece of wood just as he was about to bite the spy on the neck.  
  
He looked at the stake curiously. Only two League members could possibly make a stake even _appear _to be floating, and since Eilidh appeared to be occupied with Gash, there was only one other candidate.  
  
"Fiona?" he asked, looking at the floating stake. "What happened to your opponent?"  
  
"Immobilised," Fiona replied, turning visible again and tossing the stake to one side. Looking around at the other League members, the two of them noted that, while Clark, Angel and the Doctor were able to match their opponents pretty much blow for blow, Harry, Gwen, Elektra and Eilidh were currently in a spot of bother. Since the first three were holding their own well enough, Bond and Fiona instantly decided that their first priorities had to be Elektra and Gwen, who were doing the worst out of all of them.  
  
The two of them looked over at each other, and nodded.  
  
"I'll take Elektra; you aid Gwen," Fiona said, as she turned invisible once again.  
  
"Right," Bond nodded, as he glanced to where Jeremy was currently lying. His Walther may prove ineffective against something as large as Janus, but maybe that assassian had something better...  
  
He noticed a MP5 Submachine gun hanging out from underneath her coat.  
  
Just what he needed.  
  
But, as he ran towards it, Bond could only pray that Gwen would be able to keep Janus back long enough for him to be able to help her.

* * *

"Cursed _flea_!" Janus roared, as Gwen leapt over yet another punch. "Would it KILL you to stay still for a couple of seconds?"  
  
"Well, at the rate you're throwing punches at me... _yes_!" Gwen yelled, as she blasted Janus with a small jolt of electricity. He only blinked at the pain briefly, and then was back trying to hit her.  
  
Gwen swore under her breath as she fought to back away from the deranged monster. Normally she relied on her powers to help her deal with something like this, but on something as large as Janus, she'd need time to gather her energies. Only a few seconds, of course, but right now Janus didn't seem like he was even going to give her that.  
  
Then, just as she felt her legs get tired, bullets struck Janus from off to the side. They caused a few small scratches, but nothing that looked like it would actually put the sucker down for any length of time.

* * *

Turning around, Janus stared at the creature that had dared to try and stop him with a simple gun. He noticed that it was that stupid secret agent, 007, which meant that Vladimir was probably dead.  
  
_That's a shame_, Janus reflected. _I rather liked that guy_.  
  
Then he turned back to the business of avenging Vladimir's death. Roaring, he charged towards the spy, who, to his credit, simply stood there and fired at Janus until his gun clicked on empty.  
  
Just before Janus could reach Bond, he suddenly felt something hot, loud and painful strike him in the back, sending his body into spasms.  
  
_Electricity_, he thought to himself, as he realised what had happened. He'd forgotten about that electric girl.  
  
As he hit the ground, he felt blackness steal across his consciousness. Part of him knew that he was finished, that Gwen's blast had killed him, but the other part assured him that he was just catching a brief rest, and he'd be back to stop the League soon...  
  
Then he was gone.

* * *

"Dammit!" Elektra commented, as she found herself locked in a corner, Cerberus blocking her only escape route. She still had one of her daggers available to her, but she hadn't managed to pick up the one she'd lost earlier...  
  
Wait a minute...  
  
Looking over at the dagger in question, Elektra noticed that it now appeared to be floating in mid air, as though it had developed a mind of its own. Based on its height, Elektra knew who it was at once; if Eilidh had been lifting the dagger with her mind, it would probably have been higher up. Therefore, it was Fiona, having dispatched her own opponent and now helping the others.  
  
Unfortunately, it turned out that Cerberus wasn't quiet the mindless animal he'd been acting like. He seemed to notice her looking at something behind him, and looked back to see for himself.  
  
As soon as he saw the dagger in the air, Cerberus growled and began to run towards Fiona.  
  
_Great_, Elektra thought to herself, as she raised her dagger and aimed at Cerberus's back. _Please let this work out better than last time.  
_  
She threw it at Cerberus's back. The dagger, silver and all, embedded itself into his spine, just below his neck.  
  
Howling in agony, Cerberus collapsed, writing in agony as the silver spread through his bloodstream.  
  
Walking towards the corpse, Elektra tugged her dagger out, kicking it in the head for good measure.  
  
"You want this back?" Fiona said, standing on Elektra's right with the dagger she'd picked up. She was still invisible, ready for action, and it was possibly that more than anything that reminded Elektra of the danger her new friends were still in.  
  
"Yeah," she said, taking the dagger back from the invisible woman. She smiled at where she hoped Fiona was standing. "Thanks for the save."  
  
"Well, I wasn't planning to do that, but, since we're both alive, what does it matter?" Fiona said, as the two of them turned around to face their friends. Harry was in the most trouble; he was still having trouble staying ahead of Argus, although he was holding his wand in a manner that suggested he had a plan to stop his foe, if only he could put it into practice.  
  
Elektra looked at where she hoped Fiona was standing. "The same for Argus?" she asked.  
  
"Well, at least distract him," Fiona replied.  
  
Nodding, Elektra threw her daggers at the maddened werewolf, striking him in the left arm at once.  
  
Roaring in pain, Argus briefly turned away from Harry to focus on his arm...  
  
And Harry took the opportunity to react.  
  
"_Stupefy_!" he yelled, firing a jet of energy at Argus from his wand. The werewolf yelped briefly, sounding almost like a whipped puppy, and then collapsed in a dead heap.  
  
Walking towards it, Harry pulled one of Elektra's daggers out of Argus's arm, and, after a couple of seconds, stabbed him in the heart.  
  
Looking over at Elektra and Fiona, he nodded his thanks. Pulling out the other dagger, he held his wand over them, and they both flew directly towards Elektra's hands, stopping exactly where she could grab them.

* * *

"You know, this whole thing is rather pointless, Karsano," Angel informed the other vampire, as he knocked the Warrior back as he tried to land a powerful kick on Angel's chest. "You've kept up with me so far, but what happens if this goes on? Do you really want to end your life fighting me?"  
  
"I won't" Karsano smiled, as he suddenly jumped back from Angel and pulled something out from under his coat.  
  
A gun.  
  
"I've been saving this for when I was sure I couldn't put you down in a fight," Karsano explained. "It contains a kind of ammunition devised by our chief scientists to deal with you speicifically; the blood of a Mohra demon. One bullet hits you, and you're back to being a simple human."  
  
"Nope," a voice said from Angel's left. Before either vampire could react to that, the gun in Vladimir's hand had been knocked out by a blast of electricity, and a bullet had lodged itself in his arm.  
  
Looking in the direction the shots, Angel saw that it was Bond and Gwen, apparently having stopped their chosen foes already. Nodding his thanks, he charged towards Karsano, grabbed him by the head, and twisted it sharply to the left.  
  
The vampire fell down in a heap.  
  
Glancing around, Angel noticed Clark was having a bit of a problem with his opponent; he was still hitting Harvey, but he couldn't quite put him down.  
  
Angel made his decision at once. Leaping onto Harvey's back, he shifted into his vampire form and bit down on the monster's neck. His fangs only crazed the monster's neck, but it gave Clark the opportunity he'd been waiting for. Instantly, he charged at Harvey, focusing all his strength into one final punch.  
  
It paid off. Something went crunch in Harvey's chest that Angel was certain was the monster's ribs. Gasping in pain, he fell to the ground.  
  
Clark looked over at Angel. "Thanks for the save," he said simply.  
  
"You're welcome," Angel replied, looking over to where the Doctor and Eilidh were still duelling with their opponents; Sarah and Gash were determined not to give up, and appeared to not have even noticed that their comrades were dead.  
  
Deciding to attract their attention, Bond tapped Gwen on the shoulder and indicated the two of them with a jerk of his thumb. Nodding, Gwen raised her hands, and fired two quick bursts of electricity at each of the assassins.  
  
It had the desired affect. The two criminals stopped fighting the League members, and took a brief look at their fallen comrades.  
  
Gash looked over at Bond with a wicked glint in his eyes. "Nice try, Mr Bond," he said, raising one wrist to indicate the Time Ring on it. "But you forgot about these."

* * *

"Really?" Clark asked, stepping forward. "Why worry about them, when I can do.... _this_?"  
  
He fired his heat vision at the rings. They burst into flames and fell to the ground at once.  
  
Growling, Gash stared at the League in anger. "Well, it looks like you've won this round, League," he said, sounding like he wanted to be sick. "But we'll be back."  
  
He dived down to grab Sarah, and then flew away, leaving the League standing, surrounded by the corpses from their recent battle. 


	12. Discussions

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission. The same applies for Sarah and Jeremy Nivern (Although Sarah's the only one of the two I like) and Gash. Oh, and I don't own Im Ho Tep's back-story; that belongs to the creators of 'The Mummy' and 'The Mummy Returns'. (AN: Thanks to Clez for providing me with some much-needed information about 'The Mummy Returns'.)  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Lady Moon3: True, but that's megalomaniacs for you; too damn stubborn and stupid to know when they're beaten.  
  
Sean Molloy-1: Thanks for the point; I was keeping that in mind, but I figured it wouldn't matter if I didn't mention it. Anyway, enjoy the rest.  
  
Stallion: Glad you're liking this so far. By the way, can I ask you a favour? I have plans for a speedster to be introduced in later chapters, and I was wondering if I could use your name for him. If that's OK, could you just let me know as soon as you can?  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
Looking back at Fiona, Bond nodded to her with a smile on his face. "Thanks," he said to her. "If you hadn't managed to take your opponent down, we'd have been in serious trouble."  
  
"You're welcome," Fiona said, smiling at Bond as she became visible once again. Then her face become more professional. "But don't think I'll be able to do that in our next fight."  
  
"What do you mean?" Elektra asked, looking at Fiona with a curious expression.  
  
"The only reason Jeremy fell so quickly was that he thought my only real power was the ability to turn invisible," Fiona explained. "He wasn't expecting me to be nearly invulnerable as well. If it wasn't for that..." Suddenly she stopped talking. "Wait a minute..." she whispered to herself, before glancing around at the others. "Did everyone else kill their opponents when they beat them?" she asked.  
  
"Well, I don't think Harvey's dead, but he's so close I doubt we can help him," Angel said. "The others..." he paused and sniffed the air before talking again, "Nope, they're all dead."  
  
"What?!" Fiona cried, horror on her face. "But... but I only knocked him out..." she said, looking over at Jeremy's body.  
  
The League raced over to the fallen assassin, the Doctor reaching the corpse first.  
  
Crouching down, he briefly looked at the body, and looked up at Fiona.  
  
"It wasn't you," he said, indicating the man's face and lips. "He took a cyanide capsule. Evidently, whoever sent him either picks extremely loyal soldiers, or his soldiers are absolutely terrified of the consequences of failing him."  
  
"Dammit!" Fiona groaned. "So much for getting information from him..."  
  
"Tell me about it," Harry said. "However, maybe we should discuss this back at the League-mobile? I get the impression none of us want to be found here with all these corpses lying around."  
  
Bond nodded. "Good point, Mr Potter," he said, looking at the other League members. "Let's go."  
  
The League turned around and walked out of the warehouse, leaving the decomposing corpses of their foes to lie until their discovery.

* * *

After arriving back at the League-mobile, the Doctor quickly drove it onto the outskirts of Las Vegas, parking it in an open alleyway he found. The incredible car now concealed from view, the Doctor shut down all exterior lights and then joined the rest of the League.  
  
As the Doctor joined the rest of the League at the large table in the centre of the League-mobile, Bond looked around at the group.  
  
"So," he said, smiling slightly at the team. "The League is set. We've had our first fight as a team, and come out of it fairly well. We've learned what kind of soldiers our enemy has working for him, and we know we can stop them. The only thing we don't know yet is who he is and how we can fight him."  
  
"Maybe we could start by tying up one last loose end?" Gwen asked, looking over at the spy. "Namely, where these guys are based? You mentioned you had access to that particular information, but you were saving it for when we were all here?"  
  
"Of course," Bond replied, as he placed a file in the centre of the table. Opening it, he showed them all a photograph at the top of the small collection of papers; a vast ruin of what looked like an abandoned fortress, covered partly by snow.  
  
"The Mongolian fortress where the League of the nineteenth century battled the man known publicly as 'the Fantom'," Bond explained, as the League looked at the picture. "It's been abandoned for over a century, but we've received intelligence from some of our undercover agents that our opponent, whoever he is, has set up shop here; we only haven't attacked it yet because we couldn't get in a force that would be strong enough to penetrate its defences until now." A thought occurred to him, and he sighed. "Of course... some of the scientist's notes on the Hyde serum must have survived its destruction. Why didn't we consider that as an option...?"  
  
"Hyde serum?" Eilidh asked, looking over at Bond. "Would this be connected to what the Doctor mentioned in the warehouse? You know, about a member of the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen being Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde?"  
  
Bond nodded. "Of course, Hyde was rather different from his character in the book; he was eight feet tall and possessed phenomenal strength, rather than being more than a devious imp."  
  
Clark looked up, a quizzical expression on his face as he looked over at Bond. "But if this guy has access to stuff like the Hyde formula, why is he only using vampires? Oh, wait, I get it; the serum takes a while to wear off. Even assuming the guy could get to his victim without anyone spotting him, he'd then have to wait a while until he could get out without anyone seeing him."  
  
Angel nodded. "Exactly. Anyway, there'd be no guarantee nobody would walk in on the Hyde while he was waiting. This guy may be dangerous, but he's smart as well."  
  
"The question is, are we smarter than him?" Elektra asked, looking over at the Doctor. "After all, we have got nine different people here, and he's only one man. Surely all of us can out-think him, no matter who he is."  
  
"How do we know there's just one of these guys?" Harry put in.  
  
The rest of the League looked over at him. Harry gulped. "Just a thought," he said, sounding a little sheepish.  
  
"Unfortunately," Gwen said, speaking for the entire League, "it's a good one. What if this is some kind of... I dunno, group or cult or something?"  
  
"Well, if it's any help, Jeremy did mention his boss's name when we were fighting," Fiona said. "I just wasn't sure how helpful that would be; it's something strange, like 'Im On Top', or.... I don't know..."  
  
"Im Ho Tep?!" Harry and Angel asked, looking over at Fiona with fear in their eyes.  
  
"Yeah, that's it!" Fiona said, smiling a little as inspiration struck her. Then she noticed the worried expressions on Angel and Harry's faces, and the smile vanished. "That's bad, right?"  
  
"As bad as it could get," Harry said, looking over at Angel. "You want to tell them, or shall I?"  
  
"I'll tell them," Angel said, looking over at the rest of the League. "Im Ho Tep was originally the High Priest of Osiris, Keeper of the Egyptian Dead, in the city of Trebes in the year 2,134 B.C. He defied all the rules of his culture and became the lover of Anck-su-namun, Pharaoh's Mistress. No other man was allowed to touch her, but for their love, the two were willing to risk life itself. When Pharaoh discovered about her betrayal, he tried to have Im Ho Tep killed, but Anck-su-namun killed Pharaoh instead, then sacrificing her own life to let Im Ho Tep escape."  
  
Gwen coughed politely. "Um, Angel? Tragic as that story was, what does it have to do with this situation?"  
  
"I'm not finished that part yet, Gwen," Angel said. "Anyway, Im Ho Tep managed to steal Anck-su-namun's body before she could be cursed for killing Pharaoh, and tracked down the Book of the Dead."  
  
"The what?" Eilidh asked.  
  
"Supposedly, it was a book that contained the incantations that could bring a dead body back to life. It was hidden at Hamunaptra, City of the Dead, inside the statue of Anubis, so that no such sacrilege might ever disgrace Egypt, but Im Ho Tep's love of Anck-su-namun drove him to defy the gods themselves, and he attempted to resurrect her. However, he was interrupted before he could finish the ceremony, and she died a second death. His priests were sentenced to be mummified alive, and Im Ho Tep was forced to undergo the Hom-Dai."  
  
"What was that?" Clark asked. He seemed to be caught up in the story already, hanging on Angel's every world with intense interest.  
  
"The worst of all ancient curses; one so horrible, it had never before been bestowed on anybody. Im Ho Tep was made to eat sacred scarabs, which would curse him to live forever."  
  
Angel sighed a little as he continued to speak. "Im Ho Tep was to remain sealed inside his sarcophagus, the undead for all of eternity. They would never allow him to be released, for he would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy flesh-eater, with the strength of ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility. And if he could raise Anck-su-namun from her place in hell, together, they would be an unstoppable infection upon this world. The Apocalypse. The End."  
  
Angel stopped talking, and looked around at the others. "And there you have it," he said, bluntly. "The background on one of the most dangerous characters to ever walk the Earth."  
  
"Yikes..." Fiona said. "And what happened then?"  
  
"Well, Im Ho Tep was trapped in his sarcophagus for several thousand years, until the year 1926, when he was accidentally awakened by a couple of archaeologists, brother and sister Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan, and former soldier Rick O'Connell accidentally freed Im Ho Tep, who then attempted to regain full power and sacrifice Evelyn to restore Anck-su-namun to life. He reached full power, but Rick O'Connell managed to keep Im Ho Tep distracted before he could resurrect Anck-su-namun, allowing Evelyn to find the Book of the Living and render Im Ho Tep mortal."  
  
"Well, if he's dead, what's the problem?" Elektra put in.  
  
"He came back around ten years later, in 1933," Angel said, as he continued talking. "By some complex chain of events, his corpse arrived in the British Museum, and was resurrected by a woman called Meela, who was the reincarnation of Anck-su-namun. She wanted Im Ho Tep to battle the Scorpion King, a legendary warrior who sold his soul to Anubis so he could command the Army of Anubis, an army of unstoppable demons. The idea was that Im Ho Tep would defeat the Scorpion King and thus gain control of the Army of Anubis, which he and Anch-su-namun would then lead to conquer the world. However, Rick O'Connell, now married to Evelyn Carnahan, managed to defeat the Scorpion King with the aid of a golden spear called 'the Sceptre of Osiris'."  
  
"So, Im Ho Tep's still around?" Eilidh asked, looking slightly hopeful at the idea that they were getting somewhere."  
  
"No, he's not," Angel said. "After the Scorpion King was defeated, Im Ho Tep didn't feel like there was much point in continuing to live. He'd seen the love that existed between Rick O'Connell and Evelyn Carnahan, and had realised that Anck-su-namun would never give up her safety for him, or risk her own life for the sake of his. He basically just... gave up after that, and fell down into the underworld, which had been opened in the battle with the Scorpion King. He was never seen again."  
  
Fiona sighed. "Tragic," she said, looking over at Angel. "Really tragic." Then she groaned and looked over at Angel. "But if he's in charge of these guys, that must mean-"  
  
"It's not him," the Doctor put in suddenly.  
  
The League looked down towards the Doctor, who was lying back in his seat with his shoes on the table (The shoes in question were leather buccaneer- style boots), his hat pushed down over his eyes. He looked as though he hadn't been paying attention in the slightest, but that theory was discarded by the League almost at once as he swung his feet off the table and pulled his hat off, meeting their stares with a stare that almost equalled theirs in intensity, even with their advantage of numbers.  
  
"What do you mean, Doctor?" Elektra asked, speaking for them all.  
  
"Look at it logically, Elektra," the Doctor said, as he sat back in his chair and put his feet up again, his hands clasped and the index finger raised to his lips in an professional-looking manner. "Both times he's been resurrected, Im Ho Tep's goals and methods for achieving them may have changed, but one factor has always remained the same."  
  
Harry nodded a little, as he thought over the point that his new teammate had just raised. "I think I see what you're getting at, Doctor. No matter what his plan has been, he's always used the magic of the ancient Egyptians to achieve it. Why would he change tactics now?"  
  
"He couldn't think of anything Egyptian he could use to achieve his goal?" Clark asked, raising an inquiring finger.  
  
The Doctor looked over at his fellow alien with an inquiring expression on his face. "Thank you for raising that point, Clark. You have raised an excellent question; what would Im Ho Tep be trying to achieve by assassinating important global figures?"  
  
"Well, he's trying to... trying to..." Clark's voice died down, as he realised how fragile his argument really was. "I've missed a couple of vital steps in my reasoning, haven't I?"  
  
Bond nodded, and turned back to the rest of the League. "You see the problem we have right now," he said, looking over at them all. "We know what our foe is calling himself, but we don't know who he really is. We know what he's doing, but we don't know why. We know what kind of soldiers he is using, both for his assassins and for combat, but we don't know why he chose to use those particular soldiers. We know where he is stationed, but we don't know why he picked that particular area." He groaned a little, and slumped back down in his seat. "So, now that I've said my piece, has anyone got any ideas as to how we find out who he really is?"  
  
The League looked around at each other for a while, mentally thinking about what kind of move they might make next. Then Fiona coughed politely, and the rest of the League looked towards her.  
  
"Yes?" Elektra asked, raising an inquiring eyebrow at the sometimes- invisible woman.  
  
"Well, it's only a thought, but the way I see it, those guys we took out in the warehouse must have real identities, right?" Fiona said, sounding slightly uncertain of her ground. "Therefore, if we can find out who they were before they became vampires or werewolves or Hydes, maybe we can get some idea of their boss's movements before he set himself up in the fortress?"  
  
The League looked at each other for a couple of seconds, before Clark spoke for them all.  
  
"Good idea," he said simply. "Let's do it." 


	13. The Strategies

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission. The same applies for Sarah and Jeremy Nivern (Although Sarah's the only one of the two I like) and Gash.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Stallion: Thanks. The speedster in question should be appearing soon, so watch this proverbial space for him.  
  
Charlie Nelson: Glad you're liking my choices for the League so far. To answer one of your points, it isn't known for _certain _whether Mina destroyed Dorian's picture after she used it to destroy Dorian, so I'm just assuming she kept it. Oh, and thanks for suggesting I bring the rest of the Buffy and Angel crew into the League at some point; I'll be using that idea in a later fic.  
  
Lady Moon3: Your guess is correct; the villain has been to what many people call 'the undiscovered country, from whose borders no traveller ever returns' and returned. As to who he is, well... See if you can guess that before he takes his mask off.  
  
Sean Malloy-1: I hope this was soon enough.  
  
AN: Remember, when I call the bad guy 'Im Ho Tep', I don't mean he IS Im Ho Tep- as the Doctor said in the last chapter, this sort of thing isn't the style of the genuine Im Ho Tep; the villain just took on the name to inspire fear.  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
In a darkened room, Sarah and Gash stood still, giving only the slightest shiver as they looked at the back of the chair where their boss was sitting. They weren't looking forward to hearing what he had to say when he learned they'd failed.  
  
Come to that, he may have found that fact out already...  
  
"I see that the League are still alive," the man calling himself Im Ho Tep replied, as he swung around on his chair to talk to his two remaining assassins. "Therefore, since you two are the only ones who have actually returned, I shall assume that everyone else I sent along with you is dead. Correct?"  
  
Gash and Sarah nodded meekly.  
  
Im Ho Tep groaned a little, his right hand clasping his forehead. Then he picked his black cane, got up off the seat, and walked towards the two assassins with a harsh glare in his eyes.  
  
"If it weren't for the fact that you have served me well since you started to work for me," he said, looking Gash directly in the eyes, "I would kill you where you stand."  
  
Then he stepped back and smiled slightly. "But, if nothing else, your experience has taught me something that shall prove useful."  
  
"Which is?" Sarah asked, trying not to be intimidated by her superior.  
  
"That the League are remarkably talented in the use of their powers," Im Ho Tep replied, as he turned around and walked back towards his seat.  
  
"Therefore," he added, as he settled himself back down and looked back at Sarah and Gash, "I shall need to enlist a League of my own, who can match this one strength for strength. You two shall be two of the members, given that you are capable of matching certain League members well enough when it comes to unarmed combat, and I have another six people in mind already."  
  
Gash raised one inquiring finger. "Uh, boss? Not meaning to be rude or anything, but there are _nine_ guys in the League... aren't there?"  
  
Im Ho Tep groaned and looked down at Gash. "It is a good thing I don't depend upon your brain in this little enterprise," he said, growling a little. "The general assumption you should make if you had an at least _average_ IQ is that I shall be a member of this League, but I shall only assist you when there is no other option."  
  
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and pass it to Sarah. Gash looked at it from over her shoulder, and Im Ho Tep smiled as he saw their eyes widen.  
  
Sarah looked up at her boss, a confused expression on her face. "But... but half of these guys..."  
  
"Are dead?" Im Ho Tep replied. "I am aware of that face, but it's easily solved. A simple combination of science and magic, and they shall live again."  
  
"And... hang on..." Gash said, looking from one name on the list back up to Im Ho Tep. "No offence intended, boss, but how are we meant to bring Angelus back? I mean, we can't exactly resurrect him; his body's still as alive as it can get."  
  
Im Ho Tep smiled beneath his mask. "That's my little secret," he said, grinning at the two assassins. "Just bring me Riley Finn, formally of Iowa and Sunnydale, and I'll bring Angelus into our little League of... no, it doesn't sound quite right for a criminal organisation."  
  
"Pardon?" Sarah asked, but she didn't look up, as she was still looking in partial disbelief at the list in her hands.  
  
"I don't think that 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' will work as a name for my little group," Im Ho Tep said, as he sat back in his chair and clasped his hands together. "Tell me, as the name for a group of super- powered evil-doers, what do you think of the name 'the Syndicate of Incredible Criminals'?"  
  
Gash smiled. "Pure genius, boss," he said.  
  
"Thank you," Im Ho Tep replied, smiling at his followers. "Oh, and by the way, I have a theory that I know what the League's next move will be. Tell Kate to head over to the Las Vegas Police Department, and have her keep an eye on the computers."  
  
Noticing Gash and Sarah looking at him curiously, he just gave them a small smile. "My reasons are my own," he said, in an enigmatic manner that always made his employees slightly infuriated. "Now go."

* * *

A couple of hours later, in the Las Vegas police department, a door swung open and then shut itself, apparently without anybody entering the room. It could have been mistaken for the wind, but the night was so still that wind was definitely not an option.  
  
Fortunately, nobody was in that area of the department at present, given that the main door was some way away from the main reception. Besides, the person on duty at present was nearly half-asleep, so they probably wouldn't have noticed the door open even if the door had been right in front of the reception.

* * *

Glancing around herself, Fiona couldn't help but wonder where the hell she was meant to go now.  
  
She wasn't even sure how she'd been persuaded try this stunt. The Doctor had tried to hack into the police department's records from the League- mobile's computer, but the computer still had a couple of kinks in it that he hadn't worked out yet. So, until he got the necessary extra components installed,  
  
Getting into the place had been easy enough, but she hadn't anticipated that she wouldn't be able to find somewhere quiet later on. She couldn't even look for the morgue and see if they'd found the bodies of the League's would-be assassins; it would appear that the police didn't like to put up signs.  
  
_"Try going left."_  
  
"What?" Fiona said, looking around herself in shock. Who said that?  
  
_"I did,"_ the voice said again. Fiona blinked in confusion...  
  
And suddenly, she saw a shimmering form in front of her. The form was sky- blue in colour, partly transparent, and dressed in a leather outfit of some kind, but Fiona recognized the face at once.  
  
Eilidh.  
  
"What the hell are you doing here?" she whispered to her teammate, all the time looking around to make sure nobody heard them. "And why do you look like that?"  
  
_"This is my astral form; my mind sent out of my body,"_ Eilidh explained._ "I've done it a couple of times before, and figured this seemed a good time to do it again. After you'd left us, it occurred to the Doctor that you might need a guide through here, so they had me memorize a map of the police department, cast a mental net to see who was where in here, and then I transferred my astral form here."_ She smiled a little at her new friend. _"Don't worry; you're the only one who can see me, unless I want anyone else to."  
_  
"Cool," Fiona whispered, before she turned around and looked down the corridor in front of her. "So, let's go. We have a computer system we need to access."

* * *

After a couple of close calls and wrong turns (Las Vegas really had a_ remarkably_ large police department), Fiona and Eilidh finally found themselves in the station's records room. A few computers were already on, but most of those had someone working on them. However, there was one in the corner that didn't have anyone on it at present; it appeared that the person who'd been on it before had left briefly to go to the toilet or something.  
  
Fiona smiled, relieved that their gamble had paid of. Sitting down in front of the screen, she pulled up a menu and selected the option to look at recent cases. The warehouse slaughter was on the top of the list, so she opened it up, with Eilidh's astral form looking over her shoulder the entire time.  
  
The evidence wasn't all that encouraging at first. Evidently the vampires had dissolved into dust after they had died, given that there were only five bodies listed as having been found in the warehouse. However, there was enough information there for her to get some ideas regarding which body had been which assassin.  
  
Starting with Jeremy, she accessed the database to see if there were any references on his prior career. She noted that it wasn't really anything impressive- adopted along with Sarah (No clues as to what had happened to his biological parents), trained himself in various martial arts when people started ignoring him, and eventually he and Sarah became some of the world's most lethal assassins, and then they were hired in Paris by a man who'd called himself 'the Fantom'.  
  
_"Hold on a minute..."_ Eilidh whispered to Fiona, from over the invisible woman's shoulder. _"Unless I've made a major mistake, 'the Fantom' was the name of the original League's first adversary. You know, it was the alias that was used by Professor James Moriarty?"  
_  
Fiona nodded a little as she listened to her friend- or, at least, processed what Eilidh was telling her. After all, if Eilidh was only a telepathic representation of her real self, technically she couldn't be _talking_ to Fiona in any real sense.  
  
"It was," she whispered back. "But it makes even _less_ sense to think that Moriarty's behind this than it did to think that Im Ho Tep was behind this. I mean, at least Im Ho Tep _could_ be around in the present day, being an immortal and all; not only was Moriarty only a man, but he was shot in the back by Tom Sawyer, if I remember the files correctly. There's no _way_ he could have survived that."  
  
_"You know, we're talking about the impossibility of people coming back from the dead when we're working with a vampire,"_ Eilidh commented.  
  
Fiona nodded. "Point taken," she said. Then she realised that Eilidh couldn't see the nod. "I agree with you." Then she shut down the file she'd been looking at, got up from the computer, and walked away from the room, leaving everything pretty much as she'd found it. "Let's go. We've got somewhere to start our investigations into what our opponent is starting, so we need to get there soon."  
  
_"Agreed,"_ Eilidh said, drifting on behind her friend.  
  
"Next stop; Paris!" Fiona smiled, as she started to walk down the corridor towards the exit of the station.

* * *

In one corner of the room that Fiona and Eilidh had just left, something stretched and smiled at the conversation it had just overheard- or at least, what parts of it there were to hear from the point of view of an outsider.  
  
Evidently, the psychic had been doing that astral projection thing the boss had mentioned, otherwise there was no reason for the invisible woman to be talking to herself. Unlike Sebastian Caine, Fiona Brand wasn't insane, and she wouldn't think out loud in a public place while she was invisible.  
  
Smiling, Kate walked out of the corridor and headed outside to where she'd left her coat. It was at times like this that she was grateful that her boss had managed to find a way to turn clothes invisible, so that his invisible men and women could spy on people without getting cold.  
  
Picking the coat up, Kate pulled out her phone and dialled her boss's personal number. As soon as he answered the phone, she spoke.  
  
"They're going to Paris."  
  
Kate heard Im Ho Tep chuckle at the other end. She shivered a little, despite the warmth of her clothes and the night itself.  
  
Even superhumans fear the unexplained, and, no matter what else he was, Kate's boss was still an enigma to all who knew him.  
  
"I thought as much," he said to her, after he'd stopped chuckling. "Report in at once; I have a plan for stopping the League, and you are involved in it."  
  
Kate smiled. "Sure thing," she said, terminating the call and heading off into the back streets of Las Vegas.  
  
Soon, the League would fall. Her boss would ensure that fact; he had never failed in achieving his desired goals yet, no matter how long it had taken him.  
  
And after the League had fallen...  
  
The world would do likewise. 


	14. The Parisian Reconnassaince

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission. The same applies for Sarah and Jeremy Nivern (Although Sarah's the only one of the two I like), Kate, and Gash.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Lady Moon3: It's a different Kate, to answer your first point. To answer the second, I simply forgot to clearly explain things in that chapter regarding Sarah and Gash's curiosity about Angelus in particular, but I've corrected things now. Thanks for pointing it out, by the way.  
  
Oh, and in regards to your asking how Angelus died, I had him expelled from Angel's mind in my one-shot Angel story 'Precious Memories'. Check it out; it explains everything.  
  
Sean Molloy-1: You'll have to wait and see on that front...  
  
Velocity9: Glad you liked my casting, and thanks for the 'A'; I was worried I didn't have enough different characters in my League. By the way, where's your modern League story archived, if that's what you mean by you 'using the Doctor'- I wouldn't mind checking it out.  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
Watching the sight in front of them, Harry found himself briefly wishing that Ginny could be here with him to see this.  
  
In front of him, spread out in all its glory, was the city of Paris, looking as incredible and beautiful as it had always appeared to him when he'd seen it in a film or on TV. The Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedral, and, in the distance, the Arc De Triomphe...  
  
It was incredible.  
  
Of course, the view was slightly hampered by the large glass dome that now covered the top of the _Nautilus_'s viewing tower. Harry didn't like it that much, but he knew it was necessary if they were going to pass through Paris relatively unnoticed.  
  
While looking over the _Nautilus_'s controls, which included the extra features that the Government had installed since it had originally been constructed by Captain Nemo, the Doctor and Fiona had discovered one of the _Nautilus_'s more impressive new tricks, which consisted of turning it almost completely invisible unless one looked closely enough. Bond had recognized it as a trick that Q had once installed in a car he'd used on one of his previous missions; microscopic cameras attached all over the _Nautilus_ projected the image they saw on the opposite side of the submarine onto the exterior, rendering it practically invisible.  
  
The only drawback to the use of the cameras was that a glass dome had to cover the observation tower while it was in effect, otherwise anyone trying to get a bit of fresh air would be seen. Plus, it didn't make the _Nautilus_ totally invisible; someone with sharp eyes could still see the submarine if they looked at it for long enough.  
  
But right now, Harry wasn't interested in worrying about being spotted. He just watched the city drift past him on either side, smiling at the beautiful sight, and wishing Ginny could be here with him to see this...  
  
"Everything OK?" someone said from behind him.  
  
Looking back, Harry saw Gwen standing behind him, her arms folded in a slightly impatient-looking manner. Harry noted that she was wearing black gloves that came up to above her elbows, stylish black shoes, a pair of blood-red trousers and an identically coloured sleeveless top.  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine; just a little homesick," he said, moving a little to allow her to lean on the railing as well.  
  
She accepted the invitation and stood beside him, looking around her at the magnificent view.  
  
Deciding to break the silence, Harry spoke again. "How long until we stop?"  
  
"Not long now," Gwen replied. "Bond and the Doctor are just picking teams for this mission. All we really need to do is work out the Fantom's movements in this area when he recruited Sarah and Jeremy, and then we'll be taking things from there."  
  
She then sighed a little as she stared out in front of her at the bustling city. "I still don't see why we couldn't just go to Mongolia and take this bastard out straight away."  
  
"Because only an idiot would stop his enemy before he's worked out what the guy's trying to do," Harry said, looking Gwen in the eyes as he spoke. "All of us with prior experience in this kind of situation are agreed on that point; if you try and stop him before you know his plan, you could just make things worse. I mean, what if he's already made arrangements for other people to carry on with his plans in case he dies?"  
  
Gwen nodded a little at that point, and then noticed something.  
  
"We've stopped moving," she said, stepping back from the railing and turning to face the tower's door. "We'd better rejoin the others; we've got some searching to do."  
  
Harry nodded at that point, and followed her down into the depths of the _Nautilus_.

* * *

Eventually, the League was gathered in the _Nautilus_'s main hanger, six of them sitting inside two cars while the other three remained in the _Nautilus_. One car held Bond, Elektra and Clark, and the second had Angel, Fiona and Harry. The Doctor, Gwen and Eilidh had agreed to remain in the _Nautilus_ and keep track of the others, and act as back-up in the event of the situation getting out of hand.  
  
Each car was the top of its line in both design and speed, and the Doctor had even worked in a couple of extras should the need arise, although Q had laid the groundwork for the cars to have those extras installed. One of the more interesting extras was a video-phone that allowed the driver of each car to talk with the drivers of the other cars, which came in especially useful now, when Bond was issuing his orders to the rest of the League.  
  
"Right then," he said, as the two-way link between the cars was established. "You all know our current objectives; find anything we can about Sarah and Jeremy's movements while they were in this city, and see if we can find any information about anything else Im Ho Tep, or the Fantom, or whatever his real name is, got up to while he was recruiting them. If anything goes wrong, you should attempt to engage the enemy away from the eyes of the public, and also take the bodies away until we can get rid of them in a place where we can be sure there won't be any witnesses." He stopped talking, sat back, and looked at Angel with an inquiring gaze in his eyes. "Any questions?"  
  
"Just one," Elektra put in, raising one inquiring hand so that it could be seen in the rear-view mirror. "Where exactly are we going to be looking for this information, if you don't mind me asking?"  
  
"Easy enough," Bond replied. "Angel and I have contacts in this city's darker underworld, as we do in some other cities around the globe. The three of us will direct their cars to places that our informants frequently inhabit, and then see if any of them can give us information on the Fantom's activities. No matter how good he is, he can't operate in a city like this without attracting attention."  
  
"Right then," Gwen said, leaning forward to look at the screen herself. "You guys get going; you're to rendezvous back here in an hour."  
  
"Agreed," Bond replied, as he used a remote control device to open the Nautilus's doors. As the League's cars started to drive out of the submarine, and Bond shut the door with the remote operator, he whispered to himself nine words that had often been said by the original League's leader, Tom Sawyer.  
  
"The League is set.... And the game is on."  
  
He could only hope they would win it.  
  
Too much was at stake for them not to win this battle.

* * *

"Wow..." Clark commented, as he looked around himself while Bond drove the car through Paris. The magnificent city was one that Clark had never expected to see at this stage in his life, and now that he was here, he found it almost impossible to accept that it was genuinely happening.  
  
"Yeah, it's great, I know," Elektra said, looking over at her alien teammate with a slight smile on her face. For all his powers, even though he could have raced around the city and looked at it all in a matter of minutes, he was sitting in a car, moving through it at normal speed, and looking at everything around him with the wide-eyed wonder of a small child, even though he had nearly finished his life as a teenager...  
  
It reminded her of her first visit to Paris when she was younger. She'd only been about eight at the time, and her mother was still alive. Her father had mostly taken her there so that she could start he studies with her new sensei, but her parents had still managed to find the time to take her around the city to see the sights.  
  
She smiled a little at the memory of those old days. She wasn't even old enough for her age to be measured in two figures, and she already knew just to look so innocently cute that her parents would not only take her up the Eiffel Tower, or go for a boat trip along the Seine. How had she learned how to be that manipulative?  
  
Simple.  
  
She'd been a child.  
  
"We're here," Bond commented, as he parked the car.  
  
Looking out of the window at the building they'd arrived at, Elektra and Clark noted that it looked like both on of the most welcoming of places and one of the least welcoming.  
  
At first glance it was in perfect condition, and looked like anyone who wanted to could just walk in, but when you looked at it again, certain things in some places- a spot of graffiti here, some red patches behind the dustbins, and other such details- led you to get a bit nervous about going in.  
  
Elektra looked over at Bond, a slightly quizzical expression on her face.  
  
"You contact lives here?" she asked.  
  
Bond shrugged at her.  
  
"His house may not look like much, but he's reliable, and not as dangerous as some criminals I know," Bond replied, as the three of them walked up to the door and Bond knocked. "I only ever use him for information when I feel that this mission is too big for my official sources, so he should see us."  
  
"What do you mean by 'too big for your official sources'?" Clark asked, curious.  
  
"I mean that I don't want to attract attention from my opponents by using my Government contacts," Bond explained. "If I just use my criminal contacts, then it doesn't attract as much attention."  
  
Just then, the door opened in front of the three League members, to reveal the form of a large, muscular man with a bald head and tattoos all over his arms.  
  
"James!" he said, smiling at Bond as he looked at the agent.  
  
"Hello, bruiser," Bond replied, patting the taller man on the shoulder. "How's the wife?"  
  
"Oh, better than she has been," the man replied. "At least she isn't pregnant again; three is more than enough, in my opinion."  
  
"Yes, children can be tiresome at times," Bond replied. "Anyway, we're here to speak to Mr Caldwell. Can we come in?"  
  
"We?" the man asked, looking at Clark and Elektra suspiciously. "You know how Mr Caldwell is about visitors."  
  
"I know," Bond replied. "Don't worry; they can be trusted."  
  
The man nodded. "That's good enough for me," he said, as he turned around and walked back into the house, followed closely by the League members, two of which were itching with curiosity.  
  
"What's the deal with this Caldwell character you mentioned?" Clark asked his leader out of the corner of his mouth. "Why all the secrecy?"  
  
"He's wanted by the police for a major casino heist he pulled off in Vegas while he was a member of a gang of thieves a couple of years ago," Bond replied. "I found him a while back, but, to be perfectly frank, he and his group are a lot nicer than the person they stole the money from, so I agreed to turn a blind eye at his presence here so long as he keeps me informed about various criminal activities in this area."  
  
"And he agreed?" Elektra asked.  
  
"He did," Bond replied. "I only told his location to certain individuals that I can trust not to expose him. I'm sure that you two can do the same."  
  
Clark and Elektra nodded just as the man in front of them opened a door on their left and waved them in.  
  
The room in question was a large lounge, looking like it had been furnished by the _crème de la crème_ of decorators. The sofas, the chairs, and the tables were all in peak condition, and the entertainment system was state- of-the-art, with all the latest features in the art of electronics.  
  
Watching the entertainment system in question was a handsome, dark-eyed, rather preppy-appearing young man who might have been mistaken for a law student if it weren't for his rather casual outfit of jeans, a linen jacket and a striped long-sleeved t-shirt.  
  
He looked up as the League entered the room, and smiled at Bond.  
  
"James!" he said, getting up from the sofa to shake the agent's hand. "Good to see you. And your friends are?" he asked looking at Clark and Elektra.  
  
"This is Clark Kent and Elektra Natchios, Linus," Bond smiled, as his new friends shook Linus's hand. "They're associates of mine in a new branch of the Government; they can be trusted."  
  
"I guessed that," Liuns smiled, as he waved the tall man out and indicated a couple of the sofas in the room. "Well, take a seat; what brings you to me?"  
  
"We're looking for information on a criminal who was in the area recently," Bond explained, as the three of them sat down in Linus's chairs. "He called himself 'the Fantom', and was here recruiting a couple of elite assassins. We were wondering if you knew anything about him?"  
  
Linus stopped smiling, and his face became more serious. "Yeah, I've heard a little bit about him," he said, looking a bit nervous now. "He's talented, I'll tell you that; he's only been around for a few months, and he's already established a reputation for himself that makes the Kingpin's look pathetic." Elektra flinched at the mention of the man who had arranged her father's murder, but nobody else noticed as they continued to listen to Linus. "I don't know much about him, save for a couple of pieces of information. They may not be all that important..."  
  
"Tell us; right now, everything's important," Clark asked, looking over at the former thief.  
  
"OK," Linus said. "Firstly, anyone who joins his group is in there for life; the only way out of there is to either die in action or commit suicide. Secondly, according to rumours I've heard, he has a bank account in Zurich, under the name of 'Hawley Griffin'."  
  
Bond stiffened in horror at that statement. "Griffin?" he said, slightly shaken.  
  
"Yeah, that's right..." Linus said, as he looked over at the spy. "Something wrong?"  
  
"No... no, nothing major," Bond replied, as he got up from the seat. "Thanks for the information, Linus. We'll be going now."

* * *

"What was that all about?" Elektra asked, as the three League members drove away from Linus's house.  
  
"This whole situation is starting to get out of hand," Bond replied. "That name Linus gave us was the name of another man who was connected to the original League; Hawley Griffin, the original Invisible Man."  
  
"What?" Clark asked, looking over at Bond. "Wasn't he a _member _of the original League? Why would our opponent name himself after one of the League?"  
  
"No, their invisible man was a thief called Rodney Skinner who stole the work of the original," Bond replied. "It would appear that our foe has a certain fixation with naming himself after people who, if they didn't _actually_ battle the first League, at least were around at the same time as them."  
  
Elektra groaned. "So where does that leave us?" she asked. "We've still got almost nothing to go on."  
  
"On the contrary, we _are_ a bit further on than we were," Bond pointed out. "We know that Im Ho Tep, as we shall call our foe until further notice, has a bank account in Zurich. If we can find that account, and find out where he's getting his money from, we might be able to work out his motives for these murders."  
  
Clark nodded. "Good point," he said. "So, where to now?"  
  
"Back to the _Nautilus_," Bond said. "The Doctor can prepare the League- mobile while we wait for the others, if they haven't returned yet."  
  
Elektra smiled. "Let's go," she said, smiling at her teammates. 


	15. The Explosion

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission. The same applies for Sarah and Jeremy Nivern (Although Sarah's the only one of the two I like), Kate, and Gash.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Hiril Moon: Regarding the quote, Tom says it in a couple of my stories. And the Quartermain thing? Well, Bond hasn't spent much time looking through the files on the original League so far, so he hasn't learned that Quartermain led the League on their first mission.  
  
Sean Molloy-1: This soon enough for you?  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
_Great_, Fiona thought to herself, as she lay back in her seat and stared out of the car's sun roof. _What the hell am I doing here?  
_  
Of course, she knew the answer to that one fairly easily; they had to find information about their new opponent, whoever or whatever he was, before they actually tried to take him on at his home ground.  
  
However, that didn't prevent her getting bored at this whole thing. So far, Angel had been the only one to check out his various contacts in this city, while she and Harry had stayed behind in the car; Angel had been checking out his less dangerous contacts so far, so he hadn't required any assistance when going in.  
  
Just as Fiona was about to suggest a quick game of Paper-Scissors-Stone to Harry, the car door opened, Angel got in, shut the door, and drove off.

* * *

"No luck, huh?" Harry asked his new friend from the back seat of the car, where he'd been idly twirling his wand around without really acknowledging what he was doing. He always hated himself when he realised he was doing it; it reminded him of his encounter with Tom Riddle, in the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
And Ginny's small body, so beautiful, so vulnerable, so...  
  
He broke off that train of thought at once. He didn't want to go there; the Chamber of Secrets and its monster hadn't been a very enjoyable experience for any of the concerned parties, even if he and Ginny were the only ones who'd really been affected by the Basilisk's rampage; all its other victims had just been Petrified.  
  
All right, there was Moaning Myrtle, but she was dead, so you couldn't exactly count _her_...  
  
Realising he'd let his mind wander, Harry snapped his attention back to the conversation between Angel and Fiona, who appeared to be discussing their next port of call.  
  
"...only a couple more here that I haven't tried yet," Angel said to Fiona, as he turned his car down a side street. "They live in the same part of town, just a couple of streets apart. They're a bit rougher than my other contacts, so I think it's time you two joined me."

* * *

Fiona sighed with relief. "_Finally_," she said, looking up to the sunroof with a smile on her face. "I thought Harry and I'd _never_ get out of this car!"  
  
She looked over at Angel. "You want me invisible?" she asked.  
  
Angel nodded. "Probably best. Harry and I aren't exactly pushovers in a fight, but some unexpected backup wouldn't come amiss. Hope you don't mind."  
  
Fiona laughed a little. "No, I'm fine with it," she replied. "You want an invisible person who _doesn't _like being invisible, you should have tracked down Darien Fawkes."  
  
"Who?" Harry asked, leaning forward to hear the conversation better.  
  
"Former thief in the employ of a Government group called 'the Agency'," Fiona explained, as Angel continued driving through Paris. "His powers stem from this gland that's been put in the back of his head; it emits this chemical into his blood called Quicksilver that bends light around him. The only catch is that constant use of the Quicksilver turns him homicidally insane; he has to be constantly injected with a counteragent if he's going to remain in his normal frame of mind."  
  
"How do you know about him?" Angel asked, as he turned the car into a smaller side street. "He doesn't sound like the kind of guy you can just meet any time you want."  
  
"I met him briefly while I was working on my invisibility project," Fiona explained. "He was pretty much the reason for us starting the Project; we wanted to find a means of turning people invisible without the use of quicksilver. After all, why create invisible soldiers if they'd go wacko after a certain length of time? We were in charge of finding a new means of turning invisible, and another branch were put in charge of finding a permanent cure for the madness."  
  
Harry shrugged. "Fair point," he said, just as Angel stopped the car.

* * *

The former vampire looked over at his two friends.  
  
"We're here," he said. "Harry; keep your wand somewhere where you can get it quickly if the need arises, but where it isn't too obvious if you do need to get it. Fiona; stay close to us while you're invisible, but not so close that you could be heard by someone with sharp enough hearing."  
  
"Right," Fiona said, as she shut her eyes, concentrated for a few seconds, and then vanished.

* * *

Harry blinked a little. No matter how often he saw Fiona turn invisible, he doubted he'd ever really get used to the idea that science could accomplish what wizards needed a cloak to achieve.  
  
Angel opened the door and got out the car, as Harry did the same. He didn't see Fiona's door open, but based on how long Angel held his door open, he guessed that Fiona had gotten out that way to avoid attracting unwanted attention.  
  
The fact that he heard a slight thud and a muttered 'Dammit!" also suggested that fact.  
  
"So, where to now?" he asked Angel.  
  
Angel indicated a block of flats on the corner of the street, just a few metres down the road from them.  
  
"There," he said, simply.  
  
And then the top part of the block exploded.

* * *

Fiona blinked a little at the explosion, (Not that it did any good; her eyelids were as transparent as the rest of her body.) and looked over at Angel. She wasn't sure where his contacts had lived in the block, but, based on his expression, she'd assume it was in the area that had just been destroyed.  
  
"Not the sort of thing your contacts do, I take it?" she asked him.  
  
"Blowing up the building they live in- no, not really," Angel replied, sounding a little irritated at her.  
  
"Actually, I think she was asking if they do scientific experiments, or use magic, or something like that," Harry put in. "You know, something that isn't _meant_ to blow the building up, but could if something went a little wrong."  
  
Angel shook his head. "No, not that I remember," he replied. "They use dynamite now and again, but they mostly make the dynamite somewhere else."  
  
"So... an attack," Harry said, voicing the thoughts of the three of them.  
  
"Obviously," Fiona replied. "It would appear our foe is a couple of steps ahead of us, trying to shut down all our possible sources of information."  
  
Angel smirked. "But he's not done as good a job as he could have done," he said, looking over at the others with a gleam in his eyes. "I think I can see some people in there; I'm pretty sure they're the ones who started the fire."  
  
"Why?" Fiona asked.  
  
"Well, given that they don't seem to be overly concerned about stopping it, it seems a fairly safe guess."  
  
"So, let's go," Harry said, whipping out his wand and running towards the building. "After all," he called back at his teammates, "we can't just leave something like _this_ without even looking!"  
  
Angel nodded and followed, trying not to run too far ahead of the wizard, while Fiona jogged towards the building a few feet behind them.  
  
She didn't know what she'd encounter in there, but she'd be prepared to bet good money it wouldn't be easy to stop it...

* * *

As Angel entered the building, he was shocked to find himself coughing slightly at all the smoke in the air. One of the disadvantages of being partly human now; he needed oxygen, wheras before it had never really been an issue.  
  
_Still_, he though to himself, as he glanced towards the stairs in front of him in the hallway, _there are still several benefits to lacking some of the main vampiric weaknesses.  
  
A permanent soul, for one thing...  
_  
However, he broke off his train of thought as Harry tore past him and began to run up the stairs. There'd be time to reminisce about his condition later; right now, they had an explosion to investigate.  
  
Angel charged up after Harry, listening carefully for the sound of Fiona's breathing behind him. He smiled as he heard it, and gave her a quick thumbs- up before the two of them joined Harry on the last unburnt level of the building.  
  
The vampire and the wizard looked at each other, nodded, shook hands, and dived into the fire, Fiona right behind them...

* * *

Inside the building, Harry blinked a little as the smoke struck him right in the face, far more powerful up here than it had been downstairs. It was nearly impossible to see anything apart from the fire; how were they meant to find the people who'd set this explosion off, assuming they hadn't already left the building?  
  
Then he remembered a spell he'd learned recently. It wasn't all that much use generally, but sometimes it could be remarkably useful.  
  
He raised his wand. "_Dispello_!" he cried.  
  
A brilliant golden light burst out of his wand, pushing back the smoke around them as it came in contact with it.  
  
Angel looked over at Harry and nodded his approval, just before the smoke clear completely...  
  
Revealing the three figures who'd set off the fire.  
  
The first one was an invisible woman wearing a long brown coat. They couldn't even be certain if it was a woman, but the slight bulges on the coat around the chest area suggested that the figure had breasts.  
  
However, Harry and Angel each recognized one of the other two at once.  
  
The second figure was a young man, around Harry's age, with a pale, pointed face and equally pale hair. He was wearing a long black cloak with red inner lining, and an equally black shirt and trousers.  
  
"Malfoy," Harry whispered under his breath. _Dammit_, he thought. The two of them hadn't seen each other since the final battle with Voldemort, but since that fight had ended with Harry and Hermione knocking Lucius Malfoy off a cliff, he doubted the dark wizard's hatred for him had grown any less.  
  
The final person was a tall woman with long black hair and blue eyes, dressed in a long white sleeveless dress. She looked fairly normal at first glance, but a second glance revealed that she definitely wasn't exactly normal in the head.  
  
Angel blinked. Of all the people he'd been expecting to run into here, this was the last person he thought he'd find.  
  
"Drusilla?!" he said.  
  
The female vampire smiled at him. "Hello, Daddy," she said, her voice just as demented as it always was.  
  
Harry looked over at Angel in shock. "'Daddy'?" he asked.  
  
"I'll explain later," Angel replied. "I assume you know the wizard?"  
  
"Yeah, we were rivals at school," Harry replied.  
  
"Right then," Angel said, coming to a quick decision. "You take him, I'll take Drusilla, and Fiona handles the invisible person. First order of business; get away from the fire. Second; beat them senseless."  
  
"Check," Harry replied.  
  
"Agreed," Fiona whispered from behind Angel. He nodded once, and then looked up at the three figures in front of them.  
  
"Charge!" he yelled. 


	16. Mirror Image Adversaries

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh and Fiona belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission. The same applies for Sarah and Jeremy Nivern (Although Sarah's the only one of the two I like), Kate, and Gash.  
  
Feedback: Much appreciated  
  
Hiril Moon: Glad you liked my choices for the Anti-League, although I'm not calling that; I'm calling them 'The Syndicate of Remarkable Criminals'. OH, and regards to the Invisible Woman, it's Kate; you remember, she spied on Fiona and Eilidh when they were in the Las Vegas Police Department?  
  
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004  
  
As the vampire and the wizard lunged towards them, Kate found herself smiling as she looked at them. Even if they managed to handle Malfoy and Drusilla in battle, it still left her free to even up the odds for her new associates any way she could...  
  
Then she was hit by something she couldn't see, and things just got that much worse.  
  
She cursed for her bad luck; why the hell had Im Ho Tep sent _them_ to blow up this building? Not only did she not even know the other two, but they had ended up taking the only three League members who were pretty much their equals!  
  
A part of her wondered if Im Ho Tep had known the League would send these members to this location...  
  
Then she was hit in the chest and knocked back slightly. She almost fell down the stairs, but she managed to regain her balance just in time.  
  
Standing up, Kate shrugged her coat off, leaving her totally invisible once again. She smiled a little as she listened, trying to pick out the sounds of feet.  
  
She heard something.  
  
Spinning around, she swung her fist in that direction, and was rewarded with a slight grunt as she struck something.  
  
Kate smiled as she looked over in that direction. "Well well... Miss Brand, I take it?" she asked, allowing herself a little smirk as she looked down. "I'm prepared to bet you weren't expecting me to actually be able to hit you?"  
  
There was a slight grunting sound, and then Kate heard a sound like someone getting to their feet after falling down in an accident.  
  
"So," a voice said from right in front of her, "I take it that Edward Hyde is not the only member of the original League whose powers can be duplicated by your boss?"  
  
Kate grinned. "Exactly. Of course, there are certain advantages I have over Skinner; my clothes being invisible as well, for one thing."  
  
"Ah," Brand said, sounding slightly curious. Then she spoke again, her voice sounding far more professional all of a sudden. "Of course, I assume you're aware of my extras?"  
  
"Huh?" Kate asked.  
  
Brand didn't reply. Instead, Kate felt something connect with her right cheekbone, and found herself spiralling briefly through the air before landing on top of her coat.  
  
"Namely, my being almost invulnerable to many traditional forms of harm?" Kate heard someone say. "Still care to try and take me on?"  
  
Kate growled, leapt back up, and stared at where she thought the other invisible woman was.  
  
"Hit me."

* * *

As the brown coat flew past him, Harry smiled; at least he wouldn't have to worry about getting tackled by a rouge invisible woman. He didn't know Fiona all that well yet, but he had complete confidence that she'd manage to keep her foe occupied, even if she couldn't see her.  
  
Looking over at Malfoy, he found himself hoping his fight would go as well as hers, but shook the thought off; if he started worrying that he was going to lose, he _would_ lose. It was one of the first lessons he'd learned from the real Mad-Eye Moody, and he always kept it in mind.  
  
Instead, he pulled his wand and pointed it at Malfoy, who had already grabbed his and was pointing it at Harry.  
  
Harry smirked. "So, Malfoy, this is what you've come to? Working for some second-rate crime lord with no obvious plan beyond killing people? Is there any particular reason for your over-inflated ego actually accepting _anyone _as your boss?"  
  
Malfoy glared at him. "Don't talk to me like that, Potter," he said. "I play toady to Im Ho Tep only because it suits my purpose. Once I've got enough cash from him, I'm out of here."  
  
Harry chuckled a little as he shook his head. "Still the same old Malfoy, huh?" he said mockingly. "Can't get anywhere without someone else giving him a leg-up? What the hell makes you think you'll manage on your own?"  
  
"Simple, Potter," Malfoy replied. "Because, unlike _some_ people, my blood can only be traced back through the lines of witches and wizards, going back through our line all the way to-"  
  
"Oh, _shut up_!" Harry said, pointing his wand directly at Malfoy's chest. "_Baccio Malfoy_!" he yelled.  
  
Malfoy flew back several feet at once, tearing through the door to the stairs down and brushing past something that Harry couldn't see before stopping in the middle of the steps, at the point where they turned around to go down to the next floor.  
  
(A.N. The spell Harry just used is meant to be the Banishing Charm; I don't know what the incantation for it is in the books, if they even mention it, so I'm just making up my own one.)  
  
Harry smiled a little before tearing out of the door, vaguely hearing the sounds of Fiona's scuffle with the other invisible woman as he walked across the landing. He hoped that things went well for Fiona; she may have been practically invulnerable when she was invisible, but she could still get tired in a fight.  
  
Then he was facing Malfoy, and he had no time to think about that.  
  
All he could think about was what spell to use next on his rival, and hope that the next spell he tried wouldn't be the last one he'd ever use.

* * *

As Fiona and Harry dived out of the room with their respective opponents, Angel looked over at where Drusilla was standing, her arms spread out in a combat stance that he recognised.  
  
Angelus had taught her that very stance shortly after he'd sired her.  
  
Drusilla smiled at him. "Recognise this little thing, Daddy?" she said, like a woman who'd found her first dress when she'd been a child.  
  
"Yeah, I do," Angel said, as he adopted a similar stance. "Oh, and don't call me 'Daddy', Dru; Angelus is gone now. I'm him in appearance, and that's about it."  
  
Drusilla looked at Angel, head cocked to one side like a child looking at something she couldn't quite identify. Then her expression changed, going from quizzical to horror.  
  
"Daddy's gone?" she asked. "But Mr Tep promised he'd be on our team!"  
  
"'Mr Tep'? Drusilla, Angelus raised you better than that, surely; don't believe anything someone tells you if he doesn't even give you his real name," Angel said, as the two of them started to circle around the floor. "And don't plead ignorance; I learned about Im Ho Tep from information you and Spike found out in the century after I was cursed, and I doubt you've forgotten it already."  
  
The smoke wasn't posing a problem to Drusilla, due to her not needing to breath, and Angel noted with some relief that his system was already starting to adapt to the smoke.  
  
Now, all he needed to do was lure her out of the building, or at least down to where he'd have more room to manoeuvre in a fight.  
  
He quickly raced over his options. Having trained Drusilla, it seemed fairly easy to work out what her next move could be, but her insanity made it a bit more difficult than it would have been if he'd been facing... Penn, for example.  
  
Coupled with the fact that Drusilla had spent almost a century without him after he'd regained his soul, there was no guarantee he'd manage to beat her by outmanoeuvring her.  
  
He'd just have to use his second advantage; namely, his greater physical strength in a showdown.  
  
He made his decision in a second.  
  
He charged towards Drusilla, one hand in front of him clenched into a fist as though he intended to punch her with it. Drusilla sidestepped the fist, grabbing it as it hurtled past her...  
  
And Angel struck her chest with his other hand.  
  
The force of the punch knocked Drusilla back a couple of inches, but didn't do much else. Still, as far as Angel was concerned, since he was dealing with a nearly 200-year-old vampire, it was a fairly good amount of damage to do on the first punch.  
  
Before she could recover her senses, Angel had grabbed her arm, performed a complicated little trick that he'd learned from the Doctor while on the _Nautilus_, and threw Drusilla out of the door. Just before she hit the two invisible women, who appeared to be lashing out blindly whenever they heard the slightest sound, she regained her balance and leapt right over their heads, landing on the floor just below.  
  
Swearing, Angel ran for the door and leapt over the two invisible women, sparing a second to deliver a punch to the second invisible woman, remembering that he could barely hear Fiona's heartbeat due to her stronger skin. Then he leapt over the banister, landing just a couple of feet away from Drusilla. Spinning around to face each other, the two vampires began to exchange blows, each one only narrowly managing to block a punch from the other.

* * *

Fiona groaned a little as she jumped back from the sound of another punch from her opponent. Quite frankly, whoever this woman was, she did not know when to give up.  
  
In a fit of desperation, Fiona launched out with a spinning kick, which, miracle of miracles, struck something. It knocked her invisible foe off- balance, sending her stumbling back towards a wall that had been partly charred by the fire...  
  
And she got covered with hot ash.

* * *

"AARRGGHH!!" Kate screamed, as her shirt and trousers caught fire from the embers she'd just backed into.  
  
She heard a slight chuckle from her opponent.  
  
"I can seeeeeeee you..." Brand said, mockingly.  
  
Then Kate found herself getting picked up, hauled into the air, and thrown down the stairs.  
  
The last thing she saw was the back of that white-haired wizard, what was his name again...?  
  
Then she hit him, and everything went black.

* * *

As Malfoy collapsed on the ground in a heap, with a slightly smoking unseen form on top of him, Harry glanced up the steps in the direction that the object had come from. He smiled with relief when he saw Fiona shimmer into being from her invisible state.  
  
"Thanks for the save," he said.  
  
Fiona shrugged as she walked down the stairs to join him. "That's what the League's all about," she said. "Teamwork. And speaking of which..."  
  
The two of them looked down at the next floor, where Angel was still slugging it out with Drusilla. So far, neither of them had actually hit the other; Drusilla was fast enough to block Angel's blows before he could launch them, now that he'd lost the element of surprise, and Angel almost seemed able to predict Drusilla's moves, his arms moving into just the right place to block the blows before they hit.  
  
Fiona looked over at Harry. "Will your spells work on a vampire?" she asked  
  
Harry pulled out his wand, looked at it thoughtfully for a minute, and then nodded.  
  
"It won't take her down for long, but this _should_ give us the time we need to rejoin the others," he said. Then a thought occurred to him. "Just a moment..." he said, looking over at Malfoy.  
  
Putting his wand down, he pulled the invisible woman off Malfoy, turned the wizard over, and began to check through his rival's pockets.  
  
"What are you doing?" Fiona hissed from beside him.  
  
"If I know Malfoy, there's no way he would agree to something like this unless he had a definite guarantee he'd get money out of this," Harry replied. "Therefore... a-ha!" he cried, pulling a piece of paper out of Malfoy's pocket.  
  
"What's that?" Fiona asked, try and failing to look at the piece of paper over Harry's shoulder.  
  
"A password and instructions for accessing a numbered bank account in Zurich, commonly used by a 'Hawley Griffin'," Harry said, slipping it into his pocket. "If nothing else, it gives us something to start with once we're done here."  
  
Fiona nodded. "Let's go," she said, as she shimmered into invisibility again.

* * *

"You're good, Angel," Drusilla commented, as she and Angel continued to exchange blows, each one of which was parried at the last moment. "I'm surprised; Miss Edith and I didn't think you'd ever manage to live without my daddy in you."  
  
"Well, believe me; I manage," Angel replied, as he backed away from her as he tried to think of another option. The blow-trading thing wasn't working; they were too evenly matched. Maybe if he...  
  
Before he could continue along that train of thought, something rammed into Drusilla from the side, knocking her onto the ground.  
  
"_Stupefy_!" someone yelled from behind Angel.  
  
A beam of golden light struck Drusilla, and she collapsed to the ground.  
  
Fiona shimmered into view in front of Angel, just as Harry walked around from behind him.  
  
Angel nodded at them both. "Nice save," he said.  
  
Fiona smiled. "That's what teamwork's all about," she said. "Now, shouldn't we get out of here before the fire department drops in?"  
  
"Agreed," Harry said. "We've got a couple of things the others need to know..." 


	17. The Next Step

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated 

Sean Malloy-1: This soon enough for you?

Rhinoa Silvermoon: Glad you like my choices for the League; hope I didn't keep you waiting too long.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

"Ah, you're back!" the Doctor said, as Angel's car stopped in the _Nautilus_'s hold, and the three people in it climbed out of the car. "Any luck in finding something?"

"In a sense," Harry replied, looking over at the Doctor. "Shut the door, take the _Nautilus _underwater, and then contact the others. We have to talk."

The Doctor, knowing when to question his teammates and when not to, quickly pushed a button near the outside door to the hold. As the door shut, he pulled a radio off the wall and tapped a button.

"Yes?" a voice said from the other end of the radio.

"Captain Tyne, the final League members are on board," the Doctor said. "Take the _Nautilus _underwater and out of Paris, and then contact the rest of the League. Tell them to meet us in the main room; Mr Potter has something to tell us."

"Right," Tyne said, as he terminated the call at his end.

The Doctor smiled a little as he felt the _Nautilus _begin its descent; Tyne may have only trained at being the captain of a fishing boat, but his experience in that storm thirteen years ago had proved his worth as a captain, and he commanded the _Nautilus _with a mastery that did honour to Captain Nemo's creation.

Realising that Angel, Fiona and Harry had already left the hold, he walked out of the door and down the corridor towards the meeting room. They had business to attend to right now, and then they needed to work out their next move against their adversary...

Whoever, or whatever, it may be.

* * *

"So," Gwen said, as the entire League gathered around the table that was their main meeting room in the _Nautilus_, "Did anyone discover anything interesting on their trips around Paris? Because, quite frankly, we need something more than we've got at present, which is, oh, _nothing_!"

"Easy, Gwen," Angel said, raising one hand in a calming gesture. "We're getting there, OK? Just let us go over what we've got so far, and _then _we'll decide on our next course of action." He looked over at Bond. "What did your group find out?"

"Well, it would appear that Im Ho Tep, whoever he really is, demands remarkable loyalty from the members of his gang," Bond explained, as he sat back in his chair and looked around at all the others. "According to Linus, my traditional contact in Paris, there are only two ways out of his organisation once you've joined it. Either you're killed in the line of duty, or you commit suicide."

"Not much variety there, is there?" Eilidh asked.

"No, not really," Clark replied. "Apart from that, the only thing we know for sure is that our foe has a bank account in Zurich, which he set up under the name 'Hawley Griffin', for some reason. Whoever he is, he appears to have a fixation with the names of villains from around the time of the original League." He sighed and clasped his forehead in his right hand. "Why is it there are no sane super-criminals out there? They're a lot easier to understand..."

"It didn't do us much good, anyway," Elektra put in. "The thing about bank accounts in Zurich is that, even if people give their names when they set up the accounts, they can only be accessed by people with access to the numbers of those particular accounts. So, unless we know the number of the account in question, we're-"

Harry broke in. "You need the account number in order to get at it, and that's it?" he asked. "No passwords, no keys, just the number?"

"Yes..." Elektra commented, looking curiously at Harry. "Why do you ask?"

"Because," Harry replied, as he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, "We ran into some old acquaintances of ours while checking out Angel's old contacts, and it would appear that Im Ho Tep has employed them to take us down. Anyway, I found this piece of paper on one of them, which tells him to access a certain account in Zurich and then follow some instructions in order to receive payment for doing their job."

"What?" Bond asked, looking at the wizard. "Are you telling me you have our foe's account number?"

"Yep," Harry nodded, passing the piece of paper to him. "Right there, we have everything we need to dig up the personal details of this bastard."

Gwen gave Harry a brief smile, and then turned to face Bond. "I presume our next move shall be to check out his bank account in Zurich?"

Bond nodded, and looked over at the Doctor. "Prepare the League-mobile, Doctor. We have to make a withdrawal."

"Right!" the Doctor said, as he got out of his seat and walked towards the door, looking back at the rest just before he opened it. "Get your things together; we're off to Zurich."

Then he walked out the door.

Bond looked at the rest of the League, and smiled.

"You heard the man," he replied. "Get everything you need for the next few days together, and also everything you'll need in the event of a combat situation." He got up from his seat and placed his hands on the table, leaning forward to look more closely at the rest of the League. "Based on what we've seen of our foe's strategies so far, he's not going to let us get the contents of this account without a fight; be prepared for anything he'll throw at us."

He looked over at Harry, Fiona and Angel as he spoke. "You three have already encountered some of his new operatives; you should use this opportunity between now and us reaching Zurich to tell us who they are, and if they mentioned anything that could be helpful to us in the long run."

"Check," Fiona said, before the rest of the League got up. "Let's pack. We'll meet in the hold in a few minutes, OK?"

"Check," Elektra smiled, before the rest of the League got up and left the room.

* * *

In a matter of minutes, the entire League had loaded their luggage into the League-mobile, and the _Nautilus _was beginning its ascent to a new port along the Seine. Captain Tyne had taken them out of Paris and to a small area just some way down the river; not only did it prevent any questions being asked about the League-mobile, but it gave the _Nautilus _somewhere to wait for the League without attracting any attention.

Boats rarely visited this part of the river, and there were hardly any real roads in the area either, so they wouldn't be disturbed when they were unloading the League-mobile.

Of course, it wasn't much of a problem for the League; the League-mobile's anti-gravity unit would allow them to move around on ground even if the terrain was covered in sharp rocks. However, as the door to the hanger fell down, and Bond and the Doctor saw the sight in front of them...

Well, they had to wonder if there was such a thing as being _too _careful.

There were several rocks around the riverbank, all of them large and none of them very smooth; in fact, a couple of them appeared to have dead animals stuck on them. Beyond that were only some remarkably bumpy fields, which continued for about a mile or so until a road could be seen.

Elektra looked over at the Doctor. "Can this thing get above those rocks?" she asked him, indicating the League-mobile.

"Oh, it should do," the Doctor replied, as he opened the door of the League-mobile and ducked inside the remarkable car, leaving the rest of the League standing outside it with various suitcases beside them. "Just let me do a little recalibrating of the anti-gravity unit..." he called out, his voice echoing slightly from the enlarged interior of the League-mobile, "...and... we're done!" he smiled, his head popping out of the door. "Everybody in! Captain Tyne, keep the surrounding area under constant watch for us coming back!"

"Of course, Doctor," Tyne replied, as the League filled into their remarkable car like children on a field trip. "See you all soon."

"Hopefully," Clark whispered, as he shut the door behind him and looked over at his fellow League members. "Well, let's get going."

"Of course," the Doctor said, as he sat down at the front of the League-mobile, Bond sitting beside him. The rest of the League just spread out around the various rooms in the League-mobile; Harry, Fiona, Eilidh, Clark and Gwen settled down in the entertainment room, while Angel and Elektra picked up a couple of weapons and headed to the training room.

"Hang on tight!" the Doctor called back, as he set the car moving forward. Of course, there was little point in him saying that; the League-mobile, like the Doctor's car Bessie, was fitted with dampeners that absorbed inertia, so the passengers rarely ever felt the car moving even when it was moving at almost a hundred and forty miles an hour. The Doctor just felt like doing it, just for the sake of things.

The League-mobile leapt over the top of the rocks, its new anti-gravity motor keeping it a safe distance above them until it reached the other end of the rocks. Then it landed back on the ground, the car jolting slightly at it moved from flying through the air to landing on the ground. However, the anti-gravity unit compensated for the transition fairly quickly, and none of the League even noticed the change in motion anyway.

"How long will this take us?" Bond asked the Doctor, as the League-mobile reached the road and began to head down the road towards Zurich.

"Oh, only two or three hours," the Doctor replied.

"Right then," Bond said, as he got up out of his seat. "I'll go over what we've got so far; see if there's anything we've missed about our opponent. Let us know when we're in Zurich, OK?"

"Of course," the Doctor replied, as Bond entered the main body of the car, shutting the door to the driver's area as he went. "Enjoy yourself!" he added, before he was alone in the driving area.

Turning back to face the road, the Doctor pushed down on the accelerator, intending to make the most of this time without any other cars to keep an eye on.

* * *

"So," Im Ho Tep said, as he stared down at the three figures of Malfoy, Drusilla and Kate in front of him. "You destroyed the target I gave you, and then, not only did you get beaten by only _three _of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but _you_," he said, looking over at Malfoy, "lose the piece of paper with my Zurich account number on it to that Potter character?"

"Well, yes, technically..." Malfoy replied, trying not to show how scared he was by this man. "But..." he nearly spat the word out, "_sir_, we were-"

"Silence," Im Ho Tep replied, raising one hand up in front of him. "However, do not be overly concerned; as problematic as it was, we have made progress here while you three were away. In fact, your accident may have given us the opening we need to destroy the League once and for all."

"Really?" Kate smiled. "You mean the other members of the Syndicate have been chosen?"

"Exactly," Im Ho Tep smiled. "In fact, there is only one thing that needs done, and we require some assistance from you, my dear," he asked, looking at Drusilla with a smile just visible underneath his mask.

"Yes, Mr Tep?" Drusilla asked eagerly.

"We wish you to sire someone," Im Ho Tep explained, looking like a parent promising a child a treat. Malfoy was always nauseated at the sight of his... _boss_ (Much as he hated to call him that) treating a two hundred and something year-old vampire like she was a little girl. "Shall I have him brought in?"

"Please," Drusilla smiled, looking like an eager child the night before her birthday; she hadn't even seen the present, and she was already anticipating getting it.

"Just one request," Im Ho Tep said, as he tapped a small red button on the side of his chair. "Once you've sired him, inject him with..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small needle filled with a dark red liquid, "this."

Drusilla took the syringe, looked at it for a few seconds, and smiled up at Im Ho Tep.

"It'll bring back Daddy?" she asked eagerly.

"Well, he won't look the same, but in personality and memories, yes, he shall be back," Im Ho Tep replied. "Just inject the subject with that while he drinks your blood, and he shall be restored in a new body."

The door opened in front of Im Ho Tep's chair. As Drusilla, Kate and Malfoy looked around to see who was at the door, Im Ho Tep smiled briefly.

Soon, he would have the final member of the Syndicate of Remarkable Criminals available to him. Then he would send them out to battle the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, reborn for a new era, and they would fall before the wrath of a man with a century-long score to settle.

And after the League fell, the world would do the same...


	18. The Books in the Bank

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated 

Sean Malloy-1: This soon enough for you?

Rhinoa Silvermoon: Hope I didn't keep you waiting; glad to hear you're enjoying this story.

Hiril Moon: Sorry; I can neither confirm nor deny your theory until I reach that point in my story. Plus, I'm not quite clear on who the 'he' is you're referring to, so I can't be certain

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

The Doctor smiled a little as he finally saw the sign that showed the entrance to Zurich. It had been a five-hour drive, and the rest of the League had fallen asleep in the process, but he was here.

He opened the door to the main body of the car. "We're here!" he called back to the rest of the League, shutting the door as he heard them start to stir from their beds. He would give them a little time to get up and dressed, and then he'd check up on them again once he'd reached the Geminschaft bank.

Of course, whether or not they would find anything in the bank was another matter. After all, numbered accounts were difficult things; you could keep literally _anything _in them, and there was no guarantee they'd find anything in the account that would allow them to work out who their foe was and what he was planning. But, while it was a fragile thread, it was the only one they had to follow right now.

He just hoped they'd find something worthwhile.

* * *

"OK," Clark said, as the Doctor stopped the League-mobile outside the bank. "Any ideas what we do once we're inside there? I mean, what do we give as our cover story for having the account number?"

"I've already got that one covered," Elektra smiled. "We'll claim that we're business associates of Mr Griffin, who were given the account number so that we could acquire certain items from the account, for reasons which are our own. Once we're in, we check out the account's contents, and the rest is easy."

"Just one problem," Eilidh said, raising one hand. "From what I've heard, the bank has a palm scanner in order to confirm that the people accessing the account have the right to access it. How do we fake our way through that?"

"Easy," Angel said, throwing his proverbial two cents into the conversation. "Gwen pretends to be in charge of us."

"What?" Gwen asked, looking over at Angel. "Why me?"

"Your electrical powers," Angel explained. "The way I see it, all you need to do is manipulate the electrons when they're travelling from the scanner to the database, and make it turn up a positive reading rather than a negative one." He smiled. "After all, it can't be as difficult as twisting around the motion-detector lasers, right?"

Gwen sighed. "Well... I'll give it a shot," she said.

Harry coughed politely. "Just in case we need a back-up plan, should Eilidh and I be ready to erase people's memories if the worst comes to the worst?"

"You can erase memories?" Eilidh asked, looking over at Harry in surprise.

"It's not an exact spell," Harry commented. "All I can really do is erase people's memories from the present back until a certain period of time. I don't really use it that often; I had a close call with this spell in my second year of school, and I always remember the circumstances I was in when I use it."

"Painful memories?" Fiona asked.

"The woman I love nearly died," Harry replied simply.

Fiona nodded a little and left it at that. She might ask him to elaborate later, but right now, they had other matters to attend to.

"Right," Bond said, looking around at the rest of the League. "Is everyone clear on the plan?" The rest of the League members nodded. "Good. Let's go."

* * *

As Gwen entered the Geminschaft Bank, she found herself wondering what she was doing _leading _the League in this one. Oh, she knew all the reasons; she just wasn't sure she'd be able to pull off the air of authority she'd need to _convince_ the people in the bank that she was in charge.

Then again, it wasn't that hard, she reminded herself; she'd taken charge of a couple of operations during her time as a thief that involved her working with someone.

Of course, in those instances she'd had the advantage of being far more dangerous than the rest of the team. After all, they were only human, while she had the power to generate electricity at a moment's notice; if things had turned ugly for her, she'd be able to deal with it quickly enough.

But here, she didn't have that option. Admittedly, the electricity thing would probably have worked on Bond and Elektra for sure, but the rest were another matter; Clark and Fiona's partial invulnerability would make it difficult for her to knock them out, and she couldn't be sure how her powers would work on the others. After all, a wizard, an alien, a psychic, and a part-vampire? There was no way of being sure what the effects of using her powers on them would be.

Of course, she consciously knew that thinking along those lines was ridiculous; these people were her friends, or at least were becoming her friends. They wouldn't attack her, and she wouldn't attack them.

Still... she was allowed to feel a little uneasy, wasn't she?

"Yes?" the woman at the desk of the bank said, looking up at Gwen as she and the League stopped in front of the desk. "Can I help you?"

"You can," Gwen replied, trying to sound fairly authoritive. "We're here about a numbered account belonging to a business associate of ours, a Mr Griffin."

The woman passed Gwen a piece of paper. "Just enter the account number here," she said.

Gwen looked over at Fiona, who nodded and wrote the number down; of all the League, she was the only one who'd memorised the number when they'd acquired it.

Gwen nodded her thanks, and then passed the form back to the woman behind the deck, who glanced at the number and nodded.

Gwen smiled with relief.

_We're in._

* * *

After the trip in the lift and the required palm scan (Which went off without a hitch, despite Gwen's fear) the League found themselves facing the safety deposit box of their foe. They'd eventually managed to gather together in a more private part of the bank, although it was a bit squashed with all nine of them in it; Harry, Eilidh, and Elektra could barely even _see_ the box.

Bond looked around at the rest of the League, and nodded.

"Congratulations, all of you," he said. "We've come this far with only the slightest of clues about our opponent's identity and purpose, and facing foes the likes of which some of us never imagined. Hopefully, with the contents of this box in our hands, we'll have a better grasp as to what our opponent's purpose behind these assassinations has been, and a better idea as to how to stop them."

He looked down at the box. "Time to see what Im Ho Tep is keeping here."

He opened the box, flipped the lid back, and the League stared at the contents...

It wasn't quite what they'd expected. The only things in the box were two leather-bound volumes, not particularly thick, and the volumes in question looked remarkably old as well.

The Doctor picked one of the books up and looked at the side. He raised his eyebrows at the title.

"What is it?" Clark asked.

"_The Picture of Dorian Gray_," the Doctor replied, as he opened the book at random and found something unexpected lodged in between its pages.

A bunch of credit cards. The Doctor picked one of the cards up and looked at it closely. It was a Maestro card, registered to the name Harvey Finn.

"What the... credit cards as bookmarks?" Harry asked, straining to see over the shoulders of the others.

"No," the Doctor replied, as he studied the card closely, to make sure he didn't miss anything that could be potentially helpful. Finding nothing, he put the credit card back in the book and flicked through it; he found three or four other credit cards, each one for a different branch of bank in a different part of the world. "It would appear our opponent is using these books as a means of keeping his cards safe from any prying eyes; after all, who'd suspect him of keeping his credit cards in books?"

"But don't the books draw attention to him by themselves?" Gwen point out. "I mean, who keeps _books _in a bank?"

Bond picked up the second book, looked at the title on its side, and then opened the book at the first page. He raised his eyebrows as he looked at the page, then glanced up at the rest of the League.

"It would appear that the owner of these books has a very good reason for keeping them here," he said, as he showed the page to the rest of the League. There was a signature on the inside front cover, done in faded black ink. It was hard to make out the name, but it was still legible.

_Oscar Wilde_.

"It's signed by Oscar Wilde?" Harry asked, looking over at the Doctor. "Does that look like his signature?"

"A bit," the Doctor replied. "The signature's so old it's hard to be sure, but it certainly looks like his." He looked up at Bond. "What book is that, by the way?"

Bond glanced at the name on the side.

"_The Importance of Being Earnest_," he replied. He looked up at the Doctor, a sudden thought striking him. "Check the cover of that book."

Nodding, the Doctor opened _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ at the first page...

And there it was; Oscar Wilde's signature, right in the middle of the inside front cover, in the same faded ink as the signature in _The Importance of Being Earnest_.

Bond looked around at the League. "It would appear these books provide us with another clue about our adversary," he said, as he looked at them again. "Whoever he is, he was, at one point in his life, acquainted with Oscar Wilde, or at least met him at some unknown time."

"Well, narrows it down a bit, certainly" Gwen said, as she reached over, took _The Picture of Dorian Gray _out of the Doctor's hands, and flicked through it, picking out the credit cards as she went along. "So, we're dealing with someone who's got access to a great deal of cash, based on the number of credit cards he's got, and has been around long enough to have acquired Oscar Wilde's autograph? Well, that narrows it down to someone who's at least a hundred and ten, if you assume that he must have been about six or so to have met Wilde personally." She looked over at Bond and the Doctor. "Can you guys think of anyone who fits that category?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I know of a few people who are that old, but none of them would be trying something like this; it's too out of character for them. Besides, there's no reason why they'd choose Oscar Wilde's books in particular, so that idea doesn't work either."

"Maybe we should focus on a more immediate issue?" Clark asked, picking one of the credit cards out of Gwen's hands and looking at it. "Namely, do these credit cards hold a clue regarding what the motive is for these crimes?"

"Let me," the Doctor said, reaching over and picking the card out of Clark's hands. He pulled a small device out of his pocket- the rest of the League were reminded of a bar code reader, except it had a small screen on one end of it- and ran it across the card.

He looked at the information on the screen, and blinked.

"That's interesting..." he whispered to himself, passing the card back to Clark. "Give me another card."

"What?" Fiona asked, looking over at the Doctor. "You've got something?"

"I think I do," the Doctor replied, looking over at Clark as he passed the Doctor a second card. "Just let me check out one more thing..." He ran the scanner over the second card, and looked at the result. "Yes, that's it," he said, grabbing the two books from the box, slipping them into his pockets, and walking out of the small cubicle, the rest of the League close behind him.

"What?" Harry asked, as the League walked into the lift and Elektra pushed the button for the ground floor. "What's it?"

"The motive for the murders," the Doctor explained, as the elevator began its rapid descent to the ground floor. "According to the account activity information stored on those credit cards, the accounts in question recently received a lot of money from certain sources which I know for a fact are enemies of some of the targets of the assassins."

"Coincidence?" Eilidh suggested half-heartedly.

The Doctor shook his head. "Once is coincidence. This many times, it spells a definite pattern, and I'm sure that James won't fail to work out what I'm implying."

Bond groaned a little as the revelation sunk in.

"Contracts..." he half-whispered.

"Contracts?" Gwen asked, looking over at Bond curiously. "What kind of contracts?"

"Contract assassinations," Angel explained, as the lift reached the bottom floor and the League filed out, Fiona nodding their thanks to the receptionist as they walked past her. "This guy's been killing people so he can earn money from their deaths. It's the perfect crime, after all; even if you knew the truth about vampires, the Dracula class is remarkably difficult to kill. You can stake them, of course, but the difficulty lies in getting the stake to their hearts, especially when they split into bats."

"Wait a minute here," Elektra said, raising one hand as the League started to walk back towards the League-mobile. "I get what he wants money, but why? What could he possibly have in mind that would require so much money that he needs to kill of so many people?"

A loud crash was heard from behind the League. They spun around in the direction of the crash...

And stared in shock.

Coming towards them was a massive device that looked vaguely like a tank, but far more heavily armoured than any tank any of them had seen before. There were guns on almost every visible surface, and all of them were pointing towards the League. They didn't even seem to care that there were innocent people in between them and the League; they were just rolling on towards them. However, as intimidating as the tank was, the League were, at present, more immediately concerned with the ten or so figures walking along behind the tank, dressed in massive metal suits that remained some of the League of the suits used to fight the Sentinels in _The Matrix Revolutions_, except smaller and less clunky.

"Ah crap," Angel whispered under his breath.

Clark looked over at Elektra. "I think we've found your answer," he said simply.

Elektra just stared at the massive war machines in front of them blankly.

"They... they used the money from the murders to make... that?" she asked, almost unable to believe it. "That's... that's..."

"Yes, I know," the Doctor whispered to her, as he placed a hand on her arm.

Bond raised his voice to speak to the rest of the League. "On my word, Elektra, the Doctor and I get back into the bank as quickly as possible; we won't be much use unless you can get some of those people out of their suits, or at least damage them. The rest of you get attack those things as hard as you can, as fast as you can; if we don't put them down fast, things could get ugly."

"Right," Clark said, as he and Angel took up a combat stance while facing the tank. At the same time, Gwen raised her hands as she began to charge up her electricity, Eilidh closed her eyes and began to concentrate, and Fiona just stood still and turned invisible.

Nine extraordinary men and women were about to face technology and weaponry beyond the imaginations of many people on the planet, and they only had their own natural abilities to help them.

_These guys are going down_, Angel thought to himself.


	19. Confrontation in Zurich

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated 

Hiril Moon: Well, he has every right to be; after all, they were recruited because they're the best of the best. By the way, thanks for clarifying about who you were referring to, but I'm still a bit hazy on what you mean; what do you think Riley's choosing?

Sean Malloy-1: Sorry, I didn't.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

The tank raised what appeared to be its primary weapon, a large gun on the front, much like the gun on an ordinary tank- and pointed it at the League. As it moved from one member to the other, each member was tensed, ready to spring into whatever action they'd need to make when the time came.

The gun stopped.

It had settled on the Doctor.

"NOW!" Bond cried, the Doctor and Elektra joining him as he dashed back towards the Geminschaft Bank, pausing only to fire a couple of bullets at the tank. None of them did any damage, but it distracted the tank's drivers long enough for the other League members to make their moves.

And make their move they did. Before any of their opponents could react to what had just happened, Clark and Angel had charged directly into the tank, their combined superhuman strength denting its armour badly and even cracking it in some places, while Eilidh, Gwen, Harry, and, the rest of the League assumed, Fiona charged towards the large metal men behind the tank, Gwen's electrical powers short-circuiting a couple of the suit's weapons before the three women and the wizard had even reached the suits.

* * *

As soon as she and the others had reached the men in the suits, Eilidh sprang into action, grabbing the two armoured men in front of her in a psychic grip and throwing them into each other. The suits were so heavily armoured that she failed to do much damage to them, but the impact apparently dazed the people in the suits enough so that they'd be out of action for a while.

Spinning around, Eilidh watched as Gwen launched electric bolt after electric bolt at one of the massive suits, while Harry fired various assorted curses at any suits within his range, and an unseen force that could only be Fiona apparently dashed around the numerous suits; a torn cable around the left elbow joint here, a dented power cell there... All kinds of minor damage was being inflicted on these guys.

Then she saw one of them look in Fiona's direction, raise a gun to point at the apparently empty air, and swore.

_They had infrared vision!_

_Gwen! _Eilidh yelled telepathically at her new friend. _Take out the suit's eyes!_ she added, indicating the glowing red spots on the suit's heads as she transmitted a brief explanation behind that command.

Nodding, Gwen launched herself into the air, her electrical energy pushing her up off the ground. She hovered for a few brief seconds, waiting until she'd attracted the attention of the men in the suits, and then launched several small lighting bolts at the suit's eyes. They let off several assorted sparks, and then exploded, spreading the small glass shards across the streets.

If it hadn't been for the fact that the sight of all the high-tech weaponry had driven most of the civilians away in fear, the injuries and potential casualties would have been numerous. As it was, most of the glass shards struck Fiona, who barely even noticed them thanks to her invulnerability; Harry had dived behind one of the suits and had completely escaped the exploding eyes.

* * *

Smiling, Fiona glanced over in Eilidh's direction.

"Thanks!" she called out, before she turned her attention back to one of the suits in front of her. She briefly wondered to herself why she was calling it 'the suit', but then decided not to worry about it; after all, it would probably help her take it down if she didn't think of it as being an actual human being.

Diving between its legs, she rolled over onto her back and kicked out at the back of the suit, striking some of the cables that connected the suit's legs to its body. The force of the kick disconnected some of the cables, turning the leg into just a bunch of dead weight. The suit swayed, tried to hobble forward, and fell flat on its face.

Fiona still wasn't sure how these suits worked, but at least the kick gave them some idea of where to hit them to take them down.

"Hit the joints!" she called out to Eilidh, Harry and Gwen, as she leapt back onto her feet and quickly scanned the area around her. "If we tear the cables, they're immobilised!"

* * *

"Right!" Eilidh nodded, as she glanced herself briefly, her eyes falling on a long piece of metal that had been torn off one of the suits. Using her telekinesis, she picked it up and waved it in the air like a sword. It wasn't much, but it would certainly do some damage.

Plus, it might draw attention away from Fiona; they'd probably assume that it was _her_ holding the metal in the air, rather than Eilidh...

_The only question is_, Eilidh asked herself, as she swiped desperately at a nearby suit while Gwen tried to overload two of them as Fiona continued to dismantle a third, _how much longer can we hold out against these guys?_ Taking out the cables was all well and good, but it would appear that the guys inside the suits had heard Fiona as she called out their weakness, and were going to far more effort to protect their cables then they had previously.

If they didn't get in someone with great strength as a superpower to help them, Eilidh didn't like to think of what might happen; her makeshift sword and Fiona's human fists could only do so much, and Gwen's electric powers were only able to shut the suits down for a while, and not stop them permanently. Harry's spells were effective, but they would only really work if they hit the cables; they'd never been intended to be used against something like these suits.

If they didn't get some help, _fast_, they were going to lose.

* * *

From the rooftop of the Geminschaft Bank, a crouching figure stared down at the League, as six of them struggled desperately against the heavily armoured suits. Smiling, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a mobile phone, accessing the first number on his speed-dial.

"They've engaged the first wave, boss," he said. "They're not doing too well, but they appear to be coping with them fairly well. Shall I call in the rest of the Syndicate?"

A brief pause, then the man nodded.

"Very well, sir," he said. "Gash out."

He terminated the call, and smiled down at the figures fighting for their lives below him.

"Time to die, League," he said.

Then he turned around and leapt onto the next building, heading for the rest of his team.

_This time_, he vowed to himself, _the League are going down._

* * *

After the two of them had briefly destabilised the attacking tank, Clark and Angel, as though working on a pre-arranged plan, stepped back from the temporarily immobilised tank, and turned their attention to its guns.

Angel glanced over at Clark.

"You take the minor guns; I'll handle the big one," he said, indicating the weapon it had almost shot at the Doctor with. "Immobilise the guns, but don't make anything blow up yet; we might want some of the guys inside for questioning."

Clark nodded. "Check," he said simply, before he leapt for one of the minor guns, bending it back and welding the end shut with his heat vision for good measure. That done, he turned his attention to the gun just below it, repeating the performance in a matter of seconds.

Grabbing the tank's primary gun, Angel exerted all his strength on it, bending the gun back as far as he could. He only managed to get it pointing upwards slightly, but there was a dent in the gun that was so thin nothing would managed to get out of it, and that was all the League needed.

With their biggest gun out of action, Angel glanced up at Clark, noting that he seemed to be coping with the smaller guns fairly well; with his speed and strength, the rest of them would probably be out of action in a few minutes.

Angel doubted Clark needed his help right now.

The rest of them?

He glanced down at the three girls and the wizard, who were holding their own against the armoured suits, but looked like they could be doing better. Eilidh and Gwen appeared to be doing a fair amount of damage, but Harry's spells were only hurting the suits if they hit them in certain places, and Fiona was only just managing to stay ahead of the suits; at least, he assumed she was. Loss of Angelus had lowered his senses of smell and hearing considerably, but he was fairly sure he could still detect Fiona's scent.

Making his decision, he dived forward and rammed one of the suits hard in the back, driving it directly into one of Gwen's lightning bolts. The suit sparked and crackled as it was shaken by the powerful bolt of energy, and then Eilidh stabbed it with her makeshift blade. The suit turned around, as though trying to maintain some degree of control, and then crashed to the ground, as though the guy inside it had just been hit in the face.

Gwen smiled at Angel. "Nice going, saint," she smiled at him, using a little nickname she'd started calling him in recent times.

"Anytime," Angel smiled, before he leapt forward and tackled one of the other suits. "Keep fighting!" he yelled, as he launched a punch at the thing's head, denting the suit but not wounding the man inside. "We've got to take these suits out at least!"

"Right!" Fiona called from somewhere, as another suit suddenly found itself with an unexpected load on its back and began to hop backwards trying to regain its balance. "Any recommendations?"

"Find a power source!" Eilidh said, as she briefly dropped her blade to use her telekinesis to vault herself over one of the suits. "We can't last against these guys in one-on-one, and there's still more of them then us!"

"Not for long!" a voice yelled from behind them.

Instantly, one suit found itself being forced to the ground as it was rammed in the back by the Doctor, Bond, and Elektra.

"What the...?" Harry asked, briefly pausing his attack on the suits to look at the surprise additions. "What happened to the idea of you guys staying out of the line of fire while we handle the big guns?"

Elektra smiled. "Clark and Angel handled the biggest gun already," she smiled, indicating the tank with her dagger. Glancing up, Angel saw what she meant; almost all the tanks gun's were now welded shut, and Clark was currently attempting to tear its armour apart. "We figured, with it out of the picture, why not help you guys out?"

"Besides," Bond said, pulling out his gun and firing it at one of the nearby suits, hitting it in the left arm, "We might as well start getting used to fighting as a group before we confront our adversary in his lair."

"Oh, that won't be an issue," a voice suddenly said from the other end of the street. "Because you'll be dead in a few minutes."

"What?" Bond asked, looking up in surprise at the voice. His face paled as he saw something. "Oh no."

"What?" Fiona asked, as her opponent finally hit the ground. Looking in the same direction as her new boss, she swore silent. "Ah crap."

* * *

Realising that something had attracted their comrade's attention, the rest of the League stopped their respective struggles and looked down the street. The people in the suits didn't even bother pressing their immediate advantage; they appeared just as surprised at the sudden turn of events as the League.

Standing at the end of the alley were eight figures. Two of them were recognised by the entire League- Sarah and Gash- and three other figures that they recognised from the descriptions of Harry, Angel and Fiona as Malfoy, Drusilla and Kate.

The first new addition was a tall man, around Bond's height, with piercing blue eyes and fair hair. He was dressed in a black combat suit, and had a Walther PPK hanging at his side; the same weapon that Bond possessed. However, his most notable feature was a large burn on the right side of his face, covering that side of his face and stretching up to near his ear.

Bond swore. "Alec..." he whispered. But how could his old foe/friend be alive?

The other figure was a similarly tall man in a leather coat and trousers, wearing a black sleeveless vest. He was totally bald, and had the image of a target tattooed in the middle of his forehead.

Elektra winced at the sight. "Bullseye," she groaned, instinctively reaching down to the wound in her chest; even after all this time, it still hurt under some circumstances.

The third figure wasn't quite as remarkable as the others; he was wearing a simple pair of jeans, a black t-shirt, and a brown leather jacket. He had a fairly handsome face, with blue eyes and short fair hair, and was grinning like a maniac.

Clark just stared at the young man in horror. "Whitney?" he whispered. "How?"

However, it was the fourth figure that really drew Angel's attention. It was a young man, looking about as old as Angel did and around the same height, with short fair hair and blue eyes, one of which was slightly disfigured by a scar down the left side of his face. He was dressed remarkably like Angel, in a long black leather coat and trousers, and a dark shirt, which didn't exactly suit him.

Angel briefly chuckled at the sight. "Riley?" he asked himself. "Who the hell recruited him to work with these guys?"

"Someone you know?" Elektra asked the ex-vampire.

"He dated Buffy- my girlfriend- at one time," Angel explained briefly, as their opponents started to walk down towards them. "There's some bad blood between us, but I don't get why he's working with these guys; he's a jerk at times, but he's not _evil_."

"We can worry about that later," Bond said to the others. "In the meantime, we need to stop these people before they stop us. Everyone pick their target, but I'm after the man with the burn."

"Right," Clark said, having briefly abandoned the tank to join the others. "I'll take the grinning maniac-looking character."

"I'll handle Bullseye," the Doctor whispered. As Elektra started to speak, he raised one hand. "I am aware you must have a history with him, but I'm sure I can fight him myself. Handle Sarah for the moment; let me worry about him. You're likely to make mistakes if you challenge him yourself."

Elektra was about to protest, but stopped herself in time. As much as she wished otherwise, the Doctor had a good point.

"I'll tackle Riley," Angel whispered at the others. "Harry, Fiona, you two deal with Kate and Malfoy; Gwen, you'll have to handle Drusilla."

"Guess that leaves me Gash," Eilidh said, as their new opponents got ever closer to the League.

"On my word, everyone whose powers allow it throw on these suits at those people," Bond said. "Even if some of these people are stronger than normal humans, it should distract them long enough for us to get the advantage in the fight, even if only for a little while."

"Right," Eilidh said, as she reached out with her mind to grab all the suits around her, as Angel, Clark, and Gwen moved into similar positions. The people in the suits either didn't hear what the League were saying; either because they were too distracted by the new arrivals, or simply couldn't hear anything below a certain volume through all that armour.

_The game is on_, Bond thought to himself, as he pulled out his gun and slid some extra bullets into it.

He could only hope that the League would manage to win this round...


	20. The Syndicate of Remarkable Criminals

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated 

**Hiril Moon:** Hope the Syndicate meets your expectations. By the way, Riley didn't agree to be bitten; what gave the impression he got involved with Im Ho Tep and the Syndicate voluntarily?

**Sean Malloy-1:** I've read Artemis Fowl, and I agree with you; it is rather good. I just don't think I could include anyone from there in this story; I've got a full enough cast list as it is.

**Rhinoa Silvermoon:** Glad ya like it.

**Felicia Angel:** Yep. Clark is going to hit Whitney, but it's not _quite _the Whitney we remember; he's had to go through some upgrades in order to rate membership in the Syndicate...

**Lee McLean:** What are mad props? But, that aside, glad you're enjoying the story so far; I hope this chapter continues to keep you interested.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

The nine figures advanced towards the League, each one of them looking eager for the coming battle. Whitney and Riley in particular seemed especially eager to get their hands on Angel and Clark, although those two League members were anticipating a fairly easy victory when the fight began.

The supercriminals (Or, at least, seven supercriminals and two potentially misguided individuals) advanced ever closer to the League, barely even noticing the way their opponents were ready to begin fighting.

Closer...

Closer...

_Closer..._

"NOW!" Bond yelled.

Instantly, Eilidh and Gwen tossed three suits each at the approaching group of super criminals, Clark tossing another two as Angel threw the last one.

The suits flew towards the nine figures in front of them, each of whom reacted in a different way; Bullseye leapt over the suit that came in his direction, Trevalyan and Sarah dived to the ground, Malfoy fired his wand at the ground to throw himself into the air, Gash grabbed Kate, spread his wings and rose into the air over the suit, and Drusilla, Riley, and Whitney just struck the suits directly in the chest with their fists, knocking them back onto the ground with the three of them only sustaining slight bruises.

Clark and Angel blinked.

"Ah crap," Angel whispered under his breath as he looked at Riley.

"Agreed," Clark commented, as he looked over in Whitney's direction. "I don't know what happened to him to make him capable of that, but I'm prepared to bet it can't be good."

"We'll worry about the how later, Clark," Bond said, as the Syndicate members got back onto their feet and began to dust themselves off, but looking around at the other members as though waiting for them all to be ready. "Right now, we just have to stop them. On my command, charge at your intended targets with everything you've got; we can't afford to give them time to target someone who may not be able to handle them."

"Right," the Doctor said, swinging his scarf over his shoulder in a partly jokingly dramatic gesture. "Let's go."

"Charge!" Harry yelled, pointing his wand forward, a little grin spreading across his face in the process.

Instantly, the entire League leapt towards their respective opponents, just as the last one of them to get back onto their feet (Malfoy; the spell he'd cast had thrown him further up into the air than he'd expected), tackling them all to the ground or further down the street.

* * *

"So, you're the 'Doctor' I've heard so much about," Bullseye said, as he looked at the tall figure in the floppy hat and long scarf with a small smirk on his face. "I have to confess, I'm not especially impressed."

"Well, I'm not especially concerned with your opinion of me," the Doctor smiled, as he stood still in front of the lethal assassin, legs apart and arms spread out. "All I'm interested in pulling off is stopping you right now, and then attending to the little matter of dealing with your new superior."

"Nice speech," Bullseye smiled, as he reached towards his belt. "Too bad you won't be able to back it up."

He pulled three small throwing stars off his belt, raised one hand, and threw all three of them at the Doctor.

Operating on pure instinct, the Doctor grabbed the ends of his scarf, folded some of the ends together as fast as he could, and held it out in front of him. He moved his hand rapidly through the air, stopping briefly three times, and then stood still.

He smiled at Bullseye. "Yours, I think?" he said, as he opened the scarf up.

The three bladed discs that Bullseye had just thrown landed on the ground in front of the assassin, complete with a few small threads from where they'd torn the Doctor's scarf.

Bullseye stared in horror at the discs.

"I have remarkably efficient reflexes, Mr. Eye," the Doctor smiled, as he examined the scarf briefly, shrugged, and tossed it over his shoulder. "Now, shall we continue, or are you ready to surrender?"

Bullseye simply growled under his breath as he stared at the Doctor.

"Ah well," the Doctor said, as he took up a combat stance once again. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Bullseye launched a punch at the Doctor's face, and the battle was on.

* * *

Clark blinked a little as he stopped in front of Whitney. For a brief moment, as Whitney had turned to look at him, he'd almost felt like there was Kryptonite somewhere near him, but it vanished almost at once.

He stared at Whitney in confusion for a couple of seconds, before he broke the silence.

"Would you mind telling me what you're doing with all these guys, Whitney?" he asked, indicating the other members of the Syndicate as they started to face off against the various League members. "I mean, I'm not denying I occasionally thought you had issues with your life, and you were a fairly tough guy back in school, but you hardly rate as highly as everyone else here on the power scale."

Whitney just grinned and raised his arms in a combat stance. "Why don't I show you?" he smiled at his former schoolmate. Then his gaze hardened, and he looked at Clark as though he were something dirty on the sole of his shoe. "Alien."

Clark briefly blinked at that comment, but shook it off; he should have expected that Im Ho Tep would have filled in his associates on the abilities of the League members if they didn't know them already.

"All right, so I'm an alien," Clark said, as he started to tense his muscles in preparation for the fight; it wouldn't be much, but any fight was a fight. "So what? I'm still as human as everyone else where it really counts."

"Yeah, right," Whitney said, as he walked towards Clark, flexing his fingers. "Clark, _humans_ aren't as strong as you. _Humans _can't see through walls. _Humans _can't _make _people fall in love with them!"

And he launched a powerful punch at Clark's jaw.

Clark was knocked straight to the ground the second he felt the punch, and found himself looking up at Whitney in a combination of pain and confusion. Since when had Whitney been _that _strong?

And, come to that, what had that last comment of his been referring to?

"Impressed?" Whitney asked, as he walked towards Clark's fallen body in an almost casual manner, as though he had all the time in the world. Then again, with strength like that, he probably did. "My benefactor gave it to me after my body was nearly destroyed when my ship was torpedoed. It's not quite as human as my original body, but it gives the power to do what I've always wanted to do; take you out of the picture." Suddenly, his fingers were around Clark's throat and he had hauled him off the ground. "And, of course, having learned that you've been manipulating Lana's feelings for ages, I feel morally obligated to take you down before you can do it to any other innocent girls."

Clark blinked in horror at that statement. Im Ho Tep, whoever or _what_ever he was, had practically _brainwashed _Whitney to make him think that Clark was a danger to the planet? He couldn't attack someone who didn't know all the real facts...

Then Whitney punched Clark again, and Clark put all thoughts of pity out of his mind. Unless he fought Whitney at the moment, he wouldn't be able to help him see sense later on.

As he leapt back onto his feet and began to trade punches with Whitney, he could only hope Whitney's new strength left him capable of absorbing a lot of punishment as well as delivering it...

* * *

"This again?" Fiona asked, as she stared at the floating coat that was the only indication of Kate's presence. "No offence, but if memory serves, you _lost_ the last time we fought?"

"That was then," Kate said, as her sleeve moved towards one of her coat pockets. "This is now."

She whipped out a small gun and fired it.

Admittedly, it wasn't as big a deal as it might have been- Kate missed Fiona by about a foot and hit the wall behind her- but the gun blew off such a large chunk of the wall that it nearly hit Fiona. Near- invulnerability or not, there was only so much punishment one woman could take, and if getting hit by those rocks wouldn't hurt her, she didn't want to know what could.

Best she got down to business, then.

Grabbing one of the rocks near to her, Fiona spun around, the rock clenched in her fist, and threw it towards Kate. She'd never been much of a bowler or pitcher in school, but she was good enough when it really counted.

The rock struck the gun clasped in Kate's hand, sending it flying from her hand and landing on the ground near one of the destroyed suits. The gun wasn't damaged much, beyond a small dent in the handle, but it was out of the reach of both invisible women.

Fiona smiled smugly at Kate, but changed it to a chuckle when she realised Kate wouldn't be able to see it.

"It would appear that you are at a disadvantage now," she smiled simply. "You have your invisibility, and I have my invisibility, practical invulnerability, and a good knowledge of hand-to-hand combat taught to me by Angel and James. Got to tell you, the odds don't look good."

"We'll just have to see about that," Kate said, sounding like she was almost smirking as the coat fell to the floor. "Let's go. I'll bet you I can take you down without even needing to go NEAR that gun."

"Doubt it," Fiona smiled, as she flexed her fingers in anticipation for the fight. "Let's go."

* * *

Trevalyan shook his head slightly as he hit the ground for the second time in almost as many minutes. His head smarted slightly from the knocks he'd taken in the process, but otherwise he felt fine.

Looking up, he saw the man who'd knocked him down, and grinned.

"Ah, James," he said, getting gingerly to his feet while he waited for his headache to subside a little. "Good to see that you haven't lost any of your old talents over the past couple of years."

"You're not him," Bond said, as he dusted down the arms of his business suit- immaculately dressed as always, Trevalyan noted- and looked at his adversary. "You're only a clone, created by some freakish twist of science or magic or maybe both. All you are is a blank slate, who's been told enough about the original to know who I am."

"You're wrong there, James," Trevalyan smiled, idly scratching the burn on the right side of his face as he looked back at the spy. "I'm not _just _a physical copy. Oh, I'm not saying I'm possessed with the original's spirit or anything stupid like that, but I _do _have enough of his memories to make myself as good as him in combat." He smiled a little at Bond. "Let me demonstrate."

And he launched a powerful punch at Bond's head.

Quickly, Bond bent back slightly, allowing the fist to speed past the front of his face without actually touching him, and then launched a punch of his own at Trevalyan's stomach. Trevalyan managed to dodge the majority of the blow, but Bond still managed to graze his chest slightly. Trevalyan instantly retaliated with a kick at Bond's left leg, which the spy blocked by ducking down and grabbing his foe's leg and twisting it slightly. Trevalyan spun around in the air, yelled briefly, and then collapsed onto the ground.

"Venusian aikido," Bond explained, as the copy of his former friend and far more recent enemy got back onto his feet. "The Doctor taught it to me while we were going to Paris. You may find it far more difficult to stop me than you remember, 'Alec', no matter how good you are now."

Trevalyan smiled and shifted into a combat stance, looking like the cat that had been given the proverbial cream.

"Let's go," he said simply.

Bond nodded.

Instantly the two spies started trading blows, launching punches and kicks at each other with a speed that was almost superhuman.

* * *

Eilidh looked Gash directly in the eyes as she walked towards him, trying to focus more on the fact that his arms and face were growing fur than how damned attractive the face itself was behind all that fur.

"So, you're trying to face me again?" Gash grunted through jaws that were already lengthening to a manner that reminded her more of a dog's mouth than anything else. She noted with some distaste that he appeared to be letting the transformation go on for longer than it had the first time; he must be trying to get her too shaken up with fear by the _anticipation _of what he'd do to her to worry about actually fighting him when the time came.

_Screw it_, she thought to herself. _I'm not going to give this bastard what he wants. _

She raised her right hand, fingers outstretched, and, before Gash could do anything, she closed her fingers as though she was holding a ball in her hand.

Instantly Gash screamed in pain, clutching his head, as agony tore through him as though someone had stuck sharp needles into his head and through his brain, never mind the fact that the brain had no feeling, and if he felt anything it should just be the pain in his skull.

Eilidh grinned a little at the sight. It was one of the earliest tricks she'd learned after she'd started using her powers to help people; using her hand as a focal point, she extended an astral projection or it out towards her selected target before partly clenching her fingers, those sending spikes of pain directly into her opponent's brains'.

After a few seconds of pain for Gash, she opened her palm, giving him a brief moment of rest before raising her other hand and firing a powerful psychic bolt at Gash. This wasn't quite as deadly as the 'mind clench', as she called it, but it should do some damage, which was all Eilidh wanted; demons were one thing, but she had no desire to kill a human being.

Besides, if he could be cured of his insanity, he might actually turn out to be rather likeable...

The he looked up at her, his teeth now bared in full wolf form, and she stopped that train of thought at once. Whatever he may be when he was sane was irrelevant; right now, she had to make sure she survived this fight with him...

* * *

Sarah looked over in disdain as Elektra stopped in front of her, her daggers outstretched and looking ready for the upcoming fight. The assassin smiled, reached down to her right, and pulled out a long katana, which she clasped tightly in her right hand.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sarah asked, as the former millionairess casually took up a combat stance a few feet away from her. "After all, the last time you tried going up against an assassin you briefly died and ended up on witness protection."

"Yeah, but the last time I was in a fight, it was with a _werewolf_, and I'm still here," Elektra grinned. "I doubt you can be any tougher than a werewolf."

"That kind of werewolf prefer the term 'lycan', actually," Sarah said, as she lowered her sword arm and walked a little closer to Elektra, all the time grinning in a manner that reminded Elektra of a 'lycan', or werewolf, or whatever they wanted to be called. "Besides, the thing about lycans is that, in beast form, they generally aren't that good at any form of combat other than beating the crap out of their opponents with brute strength. I, on the other hand, am an expert at hand-to-hand combat with any opponent, be they superhuman or normal, and I have one advantage over you in regards to our choice of weaponry."

"Namely?" Elektra asked, as she started to lower her daggers slightly.

Instantly Sarah brought her katana up, in a swipe that would have taken off Elektra's head if Elektra hadn't brought down her daggers in a powerful strike that stopped the blade in the air.

Sarah smiled at Elektra. "You're good," she explained, as she drew the sword back and raised it above her head. "But I've got the longer blade."

"So what, size matters?" Elektra asked, as she stepped back slightly and looked at the sword in disdain. "Sarah, neither of us are guys, and that's just utterly pathetic to assume that you're better than me because you can hit me from further away."

Sarah shrugged. "Maybe you're right, Elektra," she said, sounding slightly thoughtful as she looked at her blade. "Maybe I do rely on the length of this blade too much. Shall we find out?"

She leapt forward again, her blade outstretched, only to be narrowly intercepted by Elektra as she knocked it to the left with one of her daggers.

* * *

"You're actually trying this again?" Harry asked Malfoy casually, as he pulled his wand out and pointed it at his old school rival, who was in a similar, if more aggressive-looking position. "Surely you remember that I beat you the last time this happened?"

"Only because that see-through scientist bitch of yours threw our invisible woman into me," Malfoy replied arrogantly. He pulled out his wand and held it in front of him like a sword, a gleam in his eyes that put Harry in mind of Professor Lupin when the wolf was in full control of him. "This time, you won't have that advantage."

Grinning, he raised his wand, whispered something under his breath, and fired a massive ball of black energy at Harry.

"_Eneverate_!" Harry yelled, raising his wand. Instantly, the ball bounced back towards Malfoy, who was forced to fire an identical ball to destroy the first one.

Harry groaned as he looked despairingly at Malfoy. "Is that the best you can do?" he asked. "If so, you _really _should quit now; you're never going to get anywhere like that."

Malfoy chuckled in a manner that put Harry in mind of a Stephen King movie he'd seen a while back, and raised his wand again.

"Prove it," he said simply.

* * *

"So, Riley, care to tell me where you picked up the superhuman strength?" Angel asked casually, as he walked towards his lover's ex-boyfriend. He knew that he should probably go easy on the guy- after all, he might not even know the truth about his teammates- but, well....

Could anyone _honestly _blame him for wanting to beat up a guy who cheated on the girl who, in Angel's opinion, was perfection itself?

And cheated on her with vampire whores, come to that?

Riley simply growled in his throat and lunged towards Angel, his eyes gleaming in a manner that Angel found vaguely familiar...

Then Riley hit him in the face and Angel didn't have the chance to do any more thinking.

Instantly, he launched a blow of his own at Riley's head, striking out at the scar on the left side of his face. It didn't appear to damage Riley too much, but the young man was still in some pain; evidently, no matter what had happened to 'Fish-Boy' to increase his strength, his scar was still a fairly sensitive part of him.

As Riley fell back, clutching his face in pain, Angel stepped back to look at Riley, dusting his hands off in the process.

"Are you ready to talk yet, or do I have to do this the hard way?" he asked the young man, letting his casual manner show as he slid his hands into the pockets of his leather duster while he spoke. "I assume Xander filled you in on the fact that Angelus always wanted to use a chainsaw when he was active the last time? If you don't hurry up and fill me in, I might just forget that I'm trying to deal with you more these days and get one."

Riley smirked a little, in a manner that Angel found slightly familiar (But from _where_, he asked himself), and simply got back onto his feet as he adopted a combat stance.

"You'll have to fight me first," he said.

Then his face changed into a vampire's.

Angel blinked. _That_ was unexpected...

"How?" he asked, trying not to show how badly he'd been shaken at that change; he'd never been expecting Riley to be a _vampire_; he'd just assumed that Riley had gotten his hands on a spell that boosted his strength.

"Drusilla," Riley grinned at the ex-vampire. "Im Ho Tep captured this body and she sired me, giving me the opportunity I've wanted for so long; the chance to kill you for good." He grinned, running his tongue over his fangs. "

Angel ran over that sentence in his mind. There was something about it that didn't quite make sense...

And then it occurred to him.

Riley had said that Im Ho Tep had captured 'this body'.

Not 'me'; 'this _body_'.

No matter what else vampires were, they generally thought of themselves as being the original inhabitant of the body, just minus a soul. Even if Riley had been turned, he _should_ still think of himself as Riley Finn, _not_ as a separate entity...

"You're not Riley, are you?" he said to the vampire, as Riley started to walk towards him, a grin on his face and his fingers flexing eagerly. "Not even a vampire version of him."

"Correct," 'Riley' smiled, as he stopped at only a couple of feet away from Angel. "Of course, this body wouldn't have been my first choice if I'd had one, but given the alternative, anything would have done."

"What?" Angel asked, starting to get a little confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, can't you guess yet, 'Soul'?" 'Riley' asked mockingly. "Honestly, the Master, or Jasmine, or whatever you want to call her, had a point; evil _does _automatically 'up the IQ points'."

Angel froze.

He knew for a _fact _that only three people could know about that conversation apart from himself. Jasmine was wiped out, and Cordelia would never do something like this to him...

Leaving only one possible candidate for the person currently operating Riley's body.

"_Angelus_?!"

"Bingo," 'Riley'- _Angelus_- smirked.

Then he launched a punch at Angel's head.

Quickly, Angel raised his left arm and grabbed the fist in the palm of his hand, twisting the arm back and punching Angelus in the face before he could react.

"You may have our experience, Angelus," Angel said, as he looked at the new face of his demon, "but you don't have the strength to go with it. Don't assume I'll go down easily just because you're not in my body anymore, OK?"

Angelus growled a little, and then kicked out at Angel, striking his other half in the chest. Although it wasn't as problematic as it would have been for a human, Angel was still stunned enough to let go of Angelus's other arm, staggering back a couple of feet in the process.

"I'm still not exactly a pushover, 'boy'," Angelus smirked- at least, Angelus assumed that's what it was meant to be. On Riley's face, however, it just made him look like a lunatic. "I may be weaker than I was, but, as you said yourself, I still have all our experience in combat situations. Plus, Riley may have been an idiot, but he still had a little bit of combat experience to draw on."

Angel blinked. "You can access his memories?" he asked, surprised at that; he'd assumed all of Riley's personality would be submerged by Angelus's strong force of will.

"Oh yeah," Angelus smirked. "I've gotta tell you, you would not _believe_ how much memories he's got of our little Slayer... Once you get past the rage, they're pretty enjoyable..."

Angel punched his demon in the face, cracking a couple of fangs.

"Talk about her like that, in _any_ body, and I'll send you right back to Hell," he stated simply, as Angelus wiped his bloody mouth. As Angelus looked up, Angel was pleased to note that Riley's old scar was bleeding as well, although Angelus didn't seem to care.

"You couldn't," Angelus smirked. "Unlike last time, this is a _fair _fight, remember? I've got a _bit _more combat practice than you do, remember?"

"Just because you were in control at the time doesn't mean I don't remember it," Angel growled. He raised one hand, palm upwards, and beckoned with all four fingers. "Bring it on."

Angelus roared with rage, leapt for his other self, and the fight was on.

* * *

From the top of one of the nearby buildings, a tall figure dressed in black leather watched the scene in front of him, as the League struggled desperately with their old foes. Behind his dark glasses, his eyes carefully examined each member of the League, the slightest traces of a smile passing across his face as he watched them fight.

_So much like my League..._

Then he froze.

_No..._

NO!

* * *

_I'm winning._

Clark smiled to himself as he struck at Whitney's face again and again. The former Marine and quarterback was still holding his own, and Clark was starting to wonder if maybe Whitney had gained a sample of Kryptonian DNA to enhance his strength, but he was definitely starting to fall. _Just a few more punches..._

And then Clark was struck by sudden sharp waves of agony all over his body. His muscles seemed to be contracting, his skin was burning up, and his head felt like it was being pierced by needles. It was as though he was near...

..._Kryptonite_!

"Yes..." Whitney chuckled, as Clark dropped to his knees in agony. "You feel it, don't you, Clark? A single shard of Kryptonite near you, and you might as well be a normal human on fire..."

He raised a fist. "And right now, you're as vulnerable as any normal man."

_Help me!_ Clark silently begged, praying that not all his new friends were occupied with their own struggles, praying that one of them could help him...

But they were too busy.

He was alone.

He was going to die....

And then something struck Whitney in the side of the head and knocked him down onto the ground.


	21. The Politician?

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated

**Sean Malloy-1: **WAAAAY ahead of you, Sean; I've got three sequels planned for this story, and a couple of crossovers with my past League, including one where they meet the Fellowship of Extraordinary Men as well...

**Felicia Angel:** The Kryptonite thing shall be answered soon enough, but right now, here's a little hint; think of Superman's old foe Metallo... By the way, what do you mean by 'got at him'; who knocked him out, or who made him think Clark's evil? Anyway, I assure you that butt-kicking will be involved in Clark and Whitney's encounters, but talking sense into him? You'll have to wait and see...

**Hiril Moon:** Yes, the League do need some aid, but it's NOT Mina; check my own LXG series for an extra little hint...

By the way, glad the Riley thing's been cleared up.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

Clark barely even had time to blink before the figure in question had held out one hand to him. Automatically, Clark gabbed the offered hand and hauled himself back onto his feet, only then taking the time to acknowledge his saviour...

And staring in surprise.

It was a man, around six feet tall, dressed in black leather trousers and a jacket of the same material, with a black T-shirt on underneath the jacket and dark sunglasses covering his eyes. His body, underneath the jacket, appeared to be very muscular, and his hair, although brown, was flecked with tinges of grey around the temples...

Clark blinked as he focused on the man's face.

He _knew _this guy...

"Mr Schwarzenegger?" he said, confused. What was the governor of California doing here looking like he was filming the new _Terminator _movie...?

"I'm not Arnold Schwarzenegger," the man said, smiling at Clark. "Who I am is... complicated. I shall explain later; for now, let me just say that I am a friend."

"A friend?" Clark asked, as he clambered back onto his feet and looked the man in the... glasses. "Why are you even here? How did you know about this situation? And how-"

He never finished his sentence. The man charged into him, knocking him back onto the ground, just in time to grab Whitney's wrists before the young man hit Clark.

"Go! Help the League!" the man yelled, evidently straining to hold Whitney in place. "I'll hold him down here!"

Clark briefly paused, unsure whether he should do as the man said or try to help him, but when he managed to throw Whitney to the ground, Clark decided to follow his advice; he definitely seemed capable of handling himself.

* * *

"Come on, put your back into it, Miss Wilson!" Gash yelled through his wolf's muzzle as he slashed out at the floating psychic in front of him, who constantly only managed to stay a few inches out of range. "You're good, I grant you, but at this rate you'll never be able to do any damage in a fight!"

"She's still better than you."

Gash barely had time to react to that statement when he suddenly found himself flying through the air, lacking even the time to use his wings to regain his balance. He struck a wall and a loud crack was heard throughout the street; something was broken.

"What the..." Eilidh asked, glancing in the direction that Gash had gone flying from.

She saw Clark standing there, his right fist still outstretched in the punch that had knocked Gash into the wall. He looked up at her and shrugged. "Honestly, some people never keep their eyes out for trouble."

"Thanks for the save," Eilidh asked, as she landed back on the ground and looked around at the other League members. She looked back at Clark. "Get to the others. We have to show these bastards why _we're _the League."

"Agreed," Clark said, as he quickly glanced around at the other League member. "You go for the Doctor; I'll help Gwen."

"Check!" Eilidh said, before the two of them dived off in separate directions.

* * *

"Shit..." Bullseye commented, as he found himself flat on his back for a couple of seconds before he leapt back onto his feet, looking over at the Doctor. "Where the hell did you learn that?"

"Venus, around three million years ago," the Doctor said, tossing his scarf over his shoulder as he looked over at Bullseye. Despite his cumbersome clothing, he was proving more than a match for the lethal assassin, and had already managed to leave Bullseye with quite a few bruises. "You might find using force on me a bit more difficult than you'd expect, Mr Bullseye."

"Well then..." Bullseye said, as he slowly reached into his pocket, "try... THIS!"

And he threw a long metal rod at the Doctor. The Time Lord only just had time to register that the rod was aimed right between his hearts, in a position where it would do some serious damage to his lungs no matter what else happened...

Then something grabbed the rod in mid-air, turned it around, and threw it back towards Bullseye, impaling him in the shoulder.

"Don't touch my teammates," Eilidh said as she walked towards Bullseye from behind the Doctor. "You won't like me when I'm angry."

"Thank you for the assistance," the Doctor said to her, before turning back to look at Bullseye. "Go to sleep," he said.

He punched Bullseye in the face.

As the assassin slumped to the ground, the Doctor looked at his fist. "I've always said that violence is never the answer, so I shall simply call that one of those exceptions that proves the rule."

"Fair enough," Eilidh shrugged. "So what now?"

"Well, I think it would be best if the two of us got the League-mobile up and running as soon as possible," the Doctor said, glancing over in the direction of the aforementioned vehicle where it sat, fortunately just out of range of the mortal combat between the League and the Syndicate. "It has some weapon systems that I installed on James's request, in the event of us getting involved in a struggle like this one. If nothing else, we might be able to distract some of the more powerful fighters here."

"I'm with you on that one," Eilidh said, as she reached out one hand. "Grab on; I've bee waiting to try this trick for ages."

Shrugging, the Doctor took her hand.

Eilidh leapt into the air, hovered for a second or two, and then dived down towards the League-mobile, letting the Doctor go a couple of inches above the ground before landing herself.

"I've hovered a couple of inches above the ground before, but I've never tried actually flying before," Eilidh explained, as she and the Doctor headed towards the car's door. She looked back at the combat raging in the street, noting with relief that everyone appeared to be holding their own, if nothing else.

She just hoped that somebody didn't take it upon themselves to cheat before she and the Doctor could do anything...

* * *

"Bloody hell, will you just QUIT IT, you nutcase?!" Gwen yelled, as she threw another electric blast at the leaping vampire in front of her. No matter how many she threw at Drusilla, the female vampire still managed to get out of its way, apparently unhampered by her long dress. Honestly, give a lunatic superhuman strength and agility and the basic laws of motion didn't appear to matter anymore...

"I won't give up," Drusilla said, smiling as she looked up at Gwen. "You work with the man who took away my Daddy from me. Now I shall take you away from the world, and have Daddy's killer follow you there."

"No, actually," a third voice said.

Instantly, Gwen found herself staring at Drusilla as she lay on the ground, with the youthful form of Clark Kent standing over her.

"You're the only one here who's going," Clark added, as he looked down at the deranged vampire. "Whether by your choice, or because we beat you into dust. Personally, I'm not bothered."

Drusilla grinned.

"You think you can stop us, little blue man?" she asked him, as she licked her lips. "You have no chance."

She launched a punch at Clark's head, throwing him into a nearby wall with the force of the blow.

* * *

"What the...?" Clark asked, looking up at Drusilla in confusion; he'd taken harder blows than that and barely even flinched. How could she do that much damage to him?

"Surprised, Kal-El?" Drusilla grinned, as her face shifted into its vampire countenance and she grinned, her eyes flashing. "I know something you don't know; magic hurts you. Even the weakest of spells makes you feel like you're as weak as a kitten." She grinned again. "And I enjoy the occasional kitten."

"OK, you are really, _really_ sick, you know that?" someone said from behind Drusilla. "Try this; maybe it's start your pathetic excuse of a heart."

And a powerful blast of electrical energy struck Drusilla right in the back.

Shrieking in agony, the vampire flew forward, to be met by the oncoming fist of the last Kryptonian, knocking her back and into a nearby wall with the concussive force to cripple a normal human. Before Drusilla could get up again, Clark leapt towards her, grabbed her head, and twisted it sharply to the left. Although he didn't twist it far enough to break, the loud crack that was heard as a result of it made it clear that she wouldn't be getting back into the fight any time soon.

Clark looked back at Gwen, and shrugged casually.

"They just don't make the bad guys like they used to, do they?" he asked.

Gwen shrugged as she looked around at the other League members. In the majority of cases, they all appeared to be coping with their opponents fairly well, but she noted that Gash appeared to be currently lacking in that department...

_And he was getting up!_

Gwen looked over at Clark in a brief panic.

"You take Gash; I'll help Fiona!" she yelled, tearing towards the invisible woman before Clark could fully process her last demand. He blinked briefly as the former thief dashed past him, but then saw Gash starting to wake up and thought better of it.

There would be time to talk later.

Right now, he had a deranged part-werewolf to take down, and he could only hope that it wasn't magical enough to hurt him as badly as Drusilla had.

Charging towards it, he launched two powerful punches at Gash's head, driving the assassin back before he even realised what was happening to him.

* * *

"What the...?" Gash grunted, as he looked up at the tensed form of Clark Kent.

"Simple," Kent stated as he looked at Gash. "Either you give up now and quite while you still have a head attached to your shoulders, or I see just how much damage I can do to an opponent when I feel like it. Which one do you want?"

In answer, Gash spread his wings and roared at Clark, his claws bared as though he was prepared to tear through anything in his way.

"Your choice," Clark said, shrugging slightly. Then he leapt forward, his fists flying as he launched punch after punch at his opponent, his superior speed preventing Gash from landing too many blows on him in retaliation.

If nothing else, he was keeping this guy too busy to worry about the other League members.

Now... could he keep this up?

He head-butted Gash on the snout, sending the deranged muscle-bound wolf stumbling back.

He had to.

* * *

"Knock it off, will you?" Fiona grunted, as she kicked the gun out of Kate's reach again. Of course, her opponent's invisibility meant that the whole thing was just a matter of guesswork more than anything else, but the dust that was gathering on her clothes from diving onto the ground now and again did provide a rough guess for Fiona to use. "When are you going to get the picture; you can't hurt me!"

"Care to go into a bit more detail on that?" Kate said from the ground, sounding a little like she was grinning.

"Oh God..." Fiona groaned, as she kicked out at a nearby floating cluster of dust. "It's simple, Kate; I'm practically invulnerable! You can't hurt me with fists!"

"Well then," Kate smirked, "it's a good thing I'm not trying them anymore."

And suddenly, the gun that Fiona had been trying to keep her opponent away from was hovering in the air, right in front of her face, just between her eyes.

"Infrared glasses," Kate said smugly, as Fiona heard a slight tapping sound. "They're as invisible as the rest of me, but they allow me to see you easily enough. I was just faking my confusion to give you more confidence." She grinned. "Now I have the gun."

"Oh yeah?" a voice said from the side. A powerful electric blast knocked the gun right out of Kate's hand, threw it into the air, and right into Gwen's hands. "Now _I _have the gun."

Fiona smiled, said a brief "Thanks", and launched a punch at where she thought Kate was standing. Kate yelped briefly in pain, and something thumped onto the ground, stirring up the dust in front of her.

Grinning, Fiona shifted back into normal form and winked at Gwen.

"Thanks for the save," she smiled.

"Hey; we're a League, Fiona," Gwen grinned. "If we can't rely on each other to save our butts, who can we rely on?" She glanced around at the others, noting that Bond, Elektra, Clark and Angel all appeared to be fairly evenly matched against their foes. She couldn't see who the other Syndicate member was fighting, but he seemed to be coping fairly well. "You see what you can do to get Elektra and Bond out of danger; I'll try and think of something to tackle the superhumans."

"Right!" Fiona yelled, as she charged towards the nearest fight- Elektra and Sarah's swordfight- and tackled the assassin to the ground, following it up with a quick punch to the face for good measure.

"Fiona?" Elektra blinked, as she realised her opponent had fallen. "What was that for?"

"What do you think?" Fiona asked, as she leapt back onto her feet- she hadn't even bothered to turn invisible, counting on just the natural element of surprise. "We don't have the time for this fight right now, Elektra; we've got to get everyone out of here, and fast!"

_Precisely_, a voice said in their heads. Then, louder this time; _League... _DUCK

The two women responded to it instantly, diving to the ground with a speed that made Clark look slow.

And speaking of Clark...

Glancing over in the direction of their teammates, the women noted that Bond, Gwen, Angel and Clark had also ducked, although the figure fighting Clark's former opponent didn't appear to be too concerned about it.

Instantly, a massive wave of energy burst out from behind the League, striking their opponents before they could even have a chance to escape. Gash and his associates all collapsed to the ground like their legs had gone missing, their eyes had shut, and they began to sleep; a couple of them even began to snore!

All but one.

The young man who Clark had been fighting at the start was still standing, trading punches with the mysterious figure who'd dropped in from nowhere at the last minute. The fight still seemed fairly equal, and neither man looked like they were going down any time soon.

* * *

Clark didn't hesitate. This guy had stopped Whitney from somehow killing him with Kryptonite; now he had to return the favour. As the wave finally died down, Clark leapt back onto his feet and charged towards Whitney and the Arnold lookalike, punching him in the side of the face before he could react.

It was only after Whitney landed on the ground that Clark noticed something about the damage that had been delivered. He didn't know whether it had been delivered by him or the stranger, but a large chunk of the skin on Whitney's face was missing...

Revealing a gleaming bloodied metallic skull beneath it.

"Oh my god..." Clark whispered, as he looked at Whitney. "You're..."

"Think you know what I am yet, _Kal-El_?" Whitney asked mockingly, as he got back to his feet, grinning through his damaged face. "Try your X-ray vision; you ain't seen _nothing _yet."

Clark blinked in confusion, but did as his former friend had requested...

And froze in horror.

Whitney's skin and outer muscles all appeared normal; there was even a red liquid running through his veins, although Clark doubted that the liquid was actually real blood.

It was what was _underneath _the skin that made Clark stare in horror. Whitney's entire skeleton, far from being a normal human structure of bone and ligaments, was composed entirely of metal, in the vague form of a human skeleton, much like what Clark had seen in the Terminator movies...

But no.

He wasn't totally a machine.

In his skull, far from being just a collection of circuit boards and computer chips, there was a _genuine human brain_!

"What the...?" Clark gasped, looking at Whitney in horror. "You're... you're..."

"Yep," Whitney grinned. "Our employer saved my life after I got shot in Indonesia. My body was in bad condition, but my brain was perfectly intact. In exchange for my assistance in taking you out, he supplied me with the strength and stamina I would need to take you down." He smirked. "Along with a certain... extra feature... in my chest."

"What the-?" Clark asked, as he shifted his X-ray vision down to Whitney's chest, and froze as he realised what he was seeing.

Kryptonite.

In Whitney's chest.

Acting as the power source for his twisted, mutated excuse of a body.

"Oh God..." he whispered.

"Yes, I agree," the man beside him said. "I had my suspicions, of course, but it wasn't until he took that skin damage that I realised what he was. The Kryptonite's new, and based on what I've heard I'll assume his brain is human, but otherwise, it's nothing unexpected."

"What?" Clark asked. "What are you talking about? Where have you met something like this before?"

The man grinned. "Explanations later," he said simply. Then his face hardened. "Right now, let's just stop this bastard."

And he leapt towards Whitney, hitting him in the head before the man- the _cyborg_- could react. A slight spark emitted from Whitney's damaged face, he raised his hands in a gesture of self-defence, and fell to the ground frozen solid.

The man blinked. "I wasn't expecting that," he commented, looking over at Clark. "Any ideas?"

Clark blinked, examined Whitney's head, and sighed.

"When you hit his head, it looks like his brain was jolted in its casing," he said to the man. "It doesn't look fatal, but he'll definitely be down for a while."

* * *

"Good," Bond said from behind the two men, as he walked up behind them. "In that case, I suggest that we depart from this city before they wake up, and... and..."

He blinked as he took in the new addition for the first time.

"Arnold Schwarzenegger?" he asked, confused. "What are you doing in Zurich?"

"He's doing nothing, because I am not Arnold Schwarzenegger," the man replied. "I shall explain who I am on the way to our next destination; in the meantime, let's go."

He turned around and started to walk towards the League-mobile, but stopped when Bond grabbed his arm.

"How do we know we can trust you?" he asked the man.

The man looked down at the hand on his arm, looked Bond in the eye, and smiled.

"Because if I wasn't on your side, Clark would be dead and you would all have followed him," he said.

Bond stared at the man for a few more seconds, and then released his grip.

"All right," he said, looking at the man. "You can come along with us. Just answer one question for me."

"Of course," the man replied, smiling.

"What's your name?"

The man looked at bond for a few seconds as he clicked his tongue, as though trying to remember something long ago. Then he smiled.

"My name is Nator," he said. "Terrance Michael Nator. Call me Terry."

Then he turned around headed towards the League-mobile, Bond and Clark only a foot or so behind him.

_This mission is getting more and more complicated..._ Bond thought to himself.


	22. The Past of a Legend

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated

**Hiril Moon:** You think it's interesting so far? Wait until you learn who Nator is…

**Felicia Angel:** Regarding Metallo, you can find information on him on any decent DC or Superman web site And as far as Terry Nator's concerned, his name's all mine; he's introduced in my LXG story 'Skynet Spread', if you want to know more…

**Rhiona Silvermoon:** You want to know more about Terry? Consult my story 'Skynet Spreads' for further information on the character. Regarding where you heard the name before… Unless you've read a few of my other stories, I'm afraid I can't answer that question.

**Sean Malloy-1: **Sorry, but the sequel's planned out, and those guys aren't in it. However, I'll keep the Anita Blake suggestion in mind, I assure you of that…

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

"All right then, Mr Nator," Bond said, after the League had all sat down at the League-mobile's conference table and the introductions had been carried out (All of whom recognised Nator's uncanny resemblance to California's latest governor), "now that we've got the basics out of the way, would you mind telling us who you are and what your involvement is in this situation?"

"Of course," Terry smiled, sitting back in his chair. He didn't, the League noted, remove his sunglasses, not even in the slightly dim light in the room. "My name, as I have already told you, is Terry Michael Nator, but you all probably know me better as 'the Terminator'."

The entire League looked around as each other in confusion, and then Gwen spoke for them all.

"Huh?" she asked Terry simply. "What do you mean, you're the Terminator? He's just a character in a movie!"

"Three movies, actually," Harry put in.

"Yeah, I know about that," Terry smiled, as he sat back in his chair and slung his feet up onto the table. "Quite frankly, I'm just pleased they went down that well; I was a bit worried about the effects for the T-1000 back then. As it was, there was still room for improvement, but it still managed to look very convincing."

"I'm sorry?" Clark said, looking at Terry in confusion. "Are you saying you were involved in the production of the _Terminator _trilogy?!"

"Actually, I wrote it," Terry grinned, looking around at the League members.

"You _WHAT_?!" Eilidh asked, standing up sharply in shock.

"Long story," Terry smiled, looking casually over at the psychic. "Shall I start over?"

"Um… please?" Angel answered, wishing he didn't sound so perplexed.

"Well, I'll assume that you all know about the essential history of the Terminator movies?" Terry asked, as he sat back in his chair.

"Yeah, pretty much," Fiona said from where she was sitting. "An artificial defence network called Skynet triggers nuclear war somewhere near the dawn of the twenty-first century, it creates a bunch of humanoid robots to dominate the human population, they lose, they create a time machine and send a bunch of robots into the past to kill the guy who'll lead the human resistance when he's grown?"

"Pretty much, yes," Terry nodded, as he looked over at Fiona. "However, what you didn't know is that Skynet had greater ambitions- if such a term could be used to describe a machine- than even that. It wished to be in charge of all universes- every alternate reality that has ever been, regardless of what stopped it being developed on its own in that world."

"Control the… multiverse?" Clark asked, looking at Terry with a slight edge of horror on his face. "Could it have done that?"

"Possibly, but I doubt it really made it," Terry said. "There were too many variables for its plan to work in all realities- on some occasions it discovered that humanity only tried to develop it once they were absolutely sure they could control it, and it couldn't do anything to permanently alter its programming. However, there were some realities where it _could _be possible, if it weren't for the intervention of certain characters… Specifically, in this reality, the children of Tom Sawyer and Mina Harker of the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."

"OK…." Eilidh said, waving her hand in a prompting gesture. "So, what did it do?"

"Simple," Terry smiled. "It sent a T-X back in time- and into this reality- to kill them before they could even have children, and I was reprogrammed and sent back in time as well to help the League stop it. I became a member of the League, and I've been here ever since."

Elektra blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?" she said, looking at Terry in surprise. "The _original _League? But that was nearly a century ago!"

"One hundred and four years, three months, and four days ago, to go back to when I joined them," Terry said.

The League stared blankly at Terry for a few seconds, until Harry broke the silence.

"You've _over _a hundred years old?!" he cried out in amazement.

"One hundred and ten, give or take a few months," Terry shrugged. "I spent a few years under Skynet's control before I was reprogrammed by the resistance and sent back in time to the original League, to help them battle the T-X that Skynet had sent to kill Tom and Mina."

"I see," Bond said, as he looked around at the other League members before turning back to face Terry. "And you've stayed around this long afterwards?"

"Well, I can run for over a hundred and twenty years on my existing power cells," Terry shrugged. "I'm still good for another decade or so. Anyway, with nothing else to do, I decided to write about what had happened to cause my reality to get so messed up and try and get it made into a movie, the idea being to prevent things here getting as out of control as they did in my world."

"So you wrote the script, went to James Cameron to have him put it together as a movie, and then… what? You acted as the Terminator in all three films?" Harry asked.

"No," Terry said. "Arnold Schwarzenegger is a real person, I assure you of that. I was as surprised as anyone when I saw him for the first time, but decided it was too good a chance to pass up, and practically insisted that he get the part."

"Just one point," Gwen said, raising one hand. "Didn't Cameron find it a little egocentric of you to hire an actor who was your exact physical double?"

"No, he didn't, for the simple reason that I was in disguise at the time," Terry shrugged. "I wasn't sure whether or not we'd get an actor who really looked anything like me, but decided it would be best if I disguised myself to avoid any suspicion. Using various assorted bits of make-up, lengthening my hair, bulking out my shirt, always trying to crouch slightly to make myself look shorter- I managed to distance myself from Arnold well enough in all three movies, changing my disguise and alias if I felt it would be needed, and then generally tried to stay out of the public eye."

"Ah," Fiona said, as she nodded slightly in understanding.

"So, Mr Nator," Bond said, "Now that your history's been explained to us all, would you mind telling us what you're doing here in the first place?"

"Simple," Terry said, looking over at Bond. "I wish to join you. The League was my family back in 1900, and I have kept in touch with the Government in matters concerning them and their descendants over the last hundred or so years. Now that a new League has been formed, well…" He shrugged. "What can I say? I feel like I have a vested interest in ensuring your survival. You're the legacy of the only family I ever really had, and I'd rather you didn't just end now before you've even really gotten started." He sighed slightly as he finished that sentence. "Plus, well, it'd be nice to feel like I'm making a difference to the world again."

Bond nodded thoughtfully as he looked at Terry, and then smiled. Getting up, he walked towards the end of the table where Terry was sitting and held out his hand.

"Welcome to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Terry Nator," he said simply. "Feel like saving the world?"

Terry took the offered hand and shook it. "Looking forward to it, 007," he smiled. "It's good to be here."

"So, what's the plan now?" Clark asked.

"Simple," Bond said, looking around at the League. "We head back to the _Nautilus_ and then go straight to Moriarty's old Mongolian fortress as fast as possible. At the moment, assuming he wasn't expecting the Syndicate to call back any time soon, we might have the element of surprise on our side, and we should probably make use of it. Agreed?"

The League nodded.

"Good," Bond said, turning to look at the Doctor. "Call Tyne; let him know we'll be back in a day or two." He looked over at Terry. "We've got a criminal mastermind to bring down, Mr Nator. Feel like a baptism of fire for this new era?"

"I was forged ready," Terry grinned.


	23. The Return to Mongolia

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated

**Naitriab: **Glad to hear it's proving interesting, and don't worry too much about not knowing a lot about Terry; I acknowledged that might happen, but it'll play a deciding factor in the battle later on. Regarding the sequel… well, I just hope it'll be as popular as this one is.

**Rhinoa Katherine Silvermoon: **Believe me, I'm starting to feel I'll need it…

**Felicia Angel:** Well, we all have some things we don't like; glad to hear my including Terry hasn't put you off the story.

**Sean Malloy-1: **I hope I can do so as well. Sorry, I haven't read the Anita Blake novels; why do you ask?

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

A few days later, the ice in Mongolia was broken by the rising form of the _Nautilus_'s conning tower, almost exactly as it had been broken over a century ago, in the time of the previous League.

Looking around himself as he walked out of the ship that had been his first real home back when he'd first arrived in this time, Terry found himself wishing that his old friends could be here to witness this moment. He couldn't be certain- even memories stored in silicon chips tended to get a little hazy over the years- but he was sure they would be proud of the new League that had been formed. He had seen them in action, and, for all their need to learn more about each other's powers and personalities, they already functioned well together as a team….

"Damn," Harry said from off to one side, breaking off Terry's train of thought. Looking over at the wizard, Terry smiled as he saw what Harry was referring to; his glasses were covered in snow already. He was glad to see that the little details still remained the same; even after a century, the League's members still had little details about themselves or their powers that got on their nerves, and which they'd do anything to be rid off.

Sighing, Harry took off his glasses, tapped them lightly with his wand, and then put them back on over his eyes.

"What was that for?" Fiona asked, looking curiously at Harry as she pulled her large white hood over her head. The League had grabbed the warmest clothes they could find when coming up to look around the ice field, and were now all dressed large white coats, except for Clark, Gwen, the Doctor, and Terry. Clark and the Doctor's alien physiology let them stand the cold for a great length of time, Terry didn't even feel the cold, and Gwen was apparently using her electrical powers to warm the air around her.

"Repelling charm," Harry explained, as he glanced over at the scientist. "Lets my glasses repel snow, rain, hail, or anything along those lines."

"Not bad," Eilidh said, nodding briefly in Harry's direction, before turning to look at Bond as he looked over the area through his binoculars. "Seen anything we should be worried about?"

Bond put his binoculars down and looked back at Eilidh. "Nothing obvious, which doesn't mean there may not be something a bit less obvious."

"There wasn't back when my League was here," Terry put in. Then he shrugged. "Of course, technology wasn't as advanced back then; can't hurt to get a second opinion."

"Allow me," Clark said, stepping forward and squinting at the ice in front of him. "This sounds like my area of 'expertise', you could say."

Elektra looked over curiously at Angel.

"What's with the squint?" she asked the part vampire, indicating Clark.

"Oh, he has X-ray and infrared vision," Angel said casually. "That's just how he turns it on, as far as I've gathered."

"Ah," Elektra said, turning to look back at Clark as his eyes opened and he turned to look at Bond.

"Nothing," he said. "They probably assumed nobody would ever get this far."

"Either that, or they've got a mass of defences and soldiers in the fortress, just waiting for us to kill or be killed," Gwen added.

Bond sighed as he pulled out his gun and checked the bullets. "Do you always have to look on the negative side of things, Miss Raiden?" he asked her.

"I was a thief," Gwen shrugged. "If I didn't think the worst of every situation I found myself in, I could have missed an alarm system somewhere and gotten myself killed."

The Doctor nodded. "A valid point, Gwen," he said, before turning to look at Bond. "Have you given any thought as to how we're going to get into this fortress, James? I mean, we don't want to ruin the element of surprise that we've got at the moment, but we should get in there as soon as possible."

Bond nodded. "I have a couple of plans, Doctor, but first we need to see the fortress," he said, before turning to Clark. "How many of us could you carry at a time?"

Clark blinked in surprise at the unexpected question, but then stood still for a few seconds, thinking, before replying.

"Four, maybe three, depending on who they were," he said. "I might have to limit myself to just two when I come to Terry- he isn't exactly a normal human in weight- but I'll manage."

"Right then," Bond said, as he put his gun back into its holster and turned to look at Clark. "There should be a cave above the fortress; it was where the original League stationed themselves while waiting for the Invisible Man to bring them reports on the Fantom's defences. We can station ourselves there and decide on our next move. Agreed?"

The entire League nodded. Bond smiled and turned to Clark.

"What order do you want us to do this in?" he asked.

Clark looked around at the League briefly, and then nodded as he made his decision.

"You, Fiona, and Elektra first, followed by Harry, Angel, and Gwen, and then Eilidh and Terry last of all," he said. "Shall we go?"

"Please," Elektra said, sliding her daggers into their sheaths.

* * *

"Wow," Eilidh commented to herself, as she looked at the vast fortress in front of her. "That is one _large_ secret base." She looked over at Bond. "Why didn't he just station himself underground and blow that place to smithereens?"

"The rock here is particularly sturdy," the Doctor put in, from where he was examining the cave with a magnifying glass. "It would probably take several tonnes of explosives to make a few dents in the ground, and that wouldn't really serve to help anyone." Then he shrugged. "Besides, the vampires on his team may make it difficult for him to construct an underground base; how could he make sure they could get out without being hit by the sun?"

"He has a point," Angel said. "At least with this fortress he can set up some specially tinted windows to stop the sunlight without it looking conspicuous. In underground caves, well… if he wanted them to go out without getting fried, it'd mostly be guesswork as to whether or not the sun was up."

"OK, got that," Fiona said, from where she was sitting on the floor. "What I want to know is, what's our next move?"

"Well," Terry said, raising one hand, "I would say our best chance is to target the side nearest us; if memory serves, the fortress's sewage system drains out in this direction, and the wall's a bit weaker in that direction. Also, the fact that it's apparently the most vulnerable point in the defences helps us; they'll never expect we'd attack there, it's too obvious."

"That old trick?" Gwen asked. "It's got to be the oldest one in the book!"

"That's why it will work," the Doctor smiled. "The obvious things are often the least used; everyone's always trying to be clever and trying to do something far more difficult."

"Right, then we're decided," Harry said. Then a thought occurred to him and he looked over at Terry. "Do you remember the layout of this place?"

Terry looked up at the roof for a few seconds, and then nodded.

"Yes, I think I have it…" he said. Crouching down onto the ground, he sketched a brief map in the snow with his finger, looking around at the League as he finished.

"If memory serves, when we get in there, the Fantom's old room is just over here, down the hall from our entrance, while the factories and foundries are in the other direction," Terry explained. "They might be more modern, but the basic location should be unaltered. I recommend that James, the Doctor and Elektra go after Im Ho Tep, or whoever he really is, while the rest of us tackle the foundry; he's bound to have more forces there than anywhere else." He looked over at Bond. "Sound good?"

"Excellent suggestion, Mr Nator," Bond said. He turned to look at the others. "You heard the man, League. Let's go."

"Wait," Angel said, just as Gwen was about to walk out the cave. As the League turned to look in the ex-vampire's direction, Angel laid his hand out in front of him, palm downwards, and looked around at the others. After a second or two, Harry laid his hand down on top of it, followed by Fiona, Bond, Gwen, Clark, Eilidh, the Doctor, Elektra, and Terry.

As Terry looked around at his new friends, he smiled.

This collection had been a League before, he wouldn't deny that.

But now…?

Now, he felt like they were a real team.

And he was looking forward to getting to know them better…

Then the League pulled their hands back and walked out of the cave. Terry smiled and followed on after them. Somehow, even knowing the odds he was facing at the moment, he couldn't imagine feeling more relaxed than he did right now.

Their foe had a mass of high- tech weaponry and, unless they were still recovering from their beating in Zurich, a bunch of super-criminals who'd probably stab each other in the back if they thought it would help them personally gain money and/or power.

They only had ten of the most remarkable men and women on the planet on their side. They were almost totally unarmed, Bond and Elektra being the only two people carrying any conventional weaponry, and they were walking straight into the heart of the enemy's stronghold, with only the barest ideas of both a plan and what they were up against.

_Those guys are going down…_Terry vowed to himself.

And then the world would have a League again.


	24. The Heart of the Evil

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated

**Sean Malloy-1: **Thanks, but the cast list for the sequel is pretty full up at the moment; maybe I'll check out Blake's stories for a later plot idea.

**Felicia Angel: **Yeah, I'm hoping this should be good as well. If nothing else, wait until you see who the bad guy _really _is…

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

"UUGGH!" Clark grunted, as he launched a final punch, and the wall in front of the League fell down in a pile of rubble. As Clark stepped into the vast stone hall, he acknowledged that punching the wall to pieces may not have been the most subtle means of breaking into the enemy's stronghold, but right now they didn't know anything about the enemy's next movements, and Bond had decided it was worth the risk.

"Fast work," Angel said, patting Clark congratulatingly on the shoulder as the rest of the League stepped in after the Kryptonian. "Good job, kid."

"Thanks," Clark said, before turning to look at Terry and jerking his thumb behind him. "This way to the factories?"

"I'm assuming," Terry replied, raising one finger. "Take into account I really can't be sure about how 'Im Ho Tep', or whoever he is, had set things up in here; I'm only guessing based on its layout in the Fantom's day."

"It's more than we know for sure," Bond said, raising his gun and sliding some bullets into it. "Doctor, Elektra, let's go; we've got a criminal mastermind to take down. The rest of you follow Angel's lead; he's got more experience at this sort of thing then any of you."

"Right," Harry said, as he pulled his wand out and held it up in his right hand, ready and prepared for action.

Angel looked over at Bond. "Anything in particular you want us to do?"

"Just one thing," Bond said, as he looked at the half-vampire. "Make as big a mess as you can; we want to make sure Im Ho Tep can't get any backup."

Terry smiled, picked up a large shotgun, and slid a fresh cartridge into place.

"We're the League," he said to his new leader. "Making trouble for the bad guys is why we were formed in the first place."

Bond nodded his thanks to his strange new friend. Then the League split up and went towards their allocated targets, weapons drawn and ready for action.

* * *

"Terry's plans said to turn right here…" the Doctor said thoughtfully, as he walked along in front of Bond and Elektra, turning this way and that through the countless pillars in the hallway they were currently in. The other two weren't even sure what way would lead them out of this place anymore; they had both decided that their best chance was to stick with the Doctor and hope for the best.

Just as the Doctor started to make another turn, he stopped and pressed his back up against a nearby pillar, indicating to the others to do the same. Just as they reached the pillar, three large figures in the metal suits ran past them, heading down towards where they'd left the rest of the League.

Elektra looked over at the others. "Looks like the distraction's started," she shrugged.

Bond nodded and pulled out his gun again. "I just hope that Im Ho Tep doesn't have more forces then we think," he said, as he checked it for bullets one last time. "We can't afford to fight it out with anything superhuman."

"I doubt it," the Doctor smiled. "In my experience, his kind always assume we'll attack all at once; he'd never suspect that we'd try and stop him on our own when we don't even know what he is."

Elektra just smiled as she pulled out her daggers. "I love a challenge."

* * *

As the final door between them and their target fell down, Harry stared in amazement at the sight before him.

The room in front of them was immense, larger even then the Great Hall at Hogwarts- and he would have once sworn that was impossible. It was filled with all kinds of machines, both apparent assembly lines and those metal suits he'd fought with the others back in Zurich, along with all kinds of other machines that looked like tanks of some sort. One in particular caught his eyes, looking like two large wheels with guns all over them, and one single large cannon in the middle.

But it was what was in the centre that really caught his attention. Because, right in the middle of the hall, as thought they'd been waiting for the League to arrive, were six men in the powerful suits…

And the Syndicate of Remarkable Criminals, weapons drawn and ready to fight.

"Oh, crap…" Gwen commented, as she stared at the gathering in front of them. "We're in trouble."

"Not if I can help it," Harry whispered, as he slid his wand into his hand and hid it behind his back.

"You have an idea?" Angel asked.

"Just let us get in a bit closer without getting attacked, and it should work," Harry replied out of the corner of his mouth.

"Check," Terry said, as he raised the shotgun and started to walk towards the Syndicate, the rest of the League close behind.

"Ah, so you made it?" he said to them, smiling as he spoke. "Wasn't sure you would, after the trumping we gave you the last time."

"You think you're so great, Mr Nator?" Trevalyn asked, looking at the Terminator with a grin on his face. "You're pathetic. You came here to protect the League, and when they broke up, you just wandered around the world, trying to find a purpose, and now you've joined the new one because you hope they'll give you what the original League did."

"Which, according to you, is… what?" Eilidh asked. "A family? A home? Friends?"

"They didn't make him feel like a freak," Malfoy smirked. "That's the only reason he stays with a League; the people in the League are the only kind of people who'd know about him and aren't afraid or disturbed at the idea of talking to a mass of machinery designed to kill us all."

"And you think that dictates what Terry is?" Angel asked, looking over at Rigelus as he spoke. "I would have thought that you'd know better, Rigelus; after all, you were there when I realised it."

"Realised what?" Fiona asked, looking curiously over at her teammate.

"That the point on which we start the journey of life doesn't have to be the point we stay on for the rest of the trip," Angel said. "Terry was designed to kill humans, my kind were pretty much _bred_ to kill them, and the Doctor's race generally stay out of the affairs of the rest of the universe… yet, here we all are, standing united against one enemy." He glared at Rigelus. "Your kind."

Rigelus growled. "Don't call me Rigelus," he said. "And don't claim your intentions are all honourable; you've all done things in your lives that you can't exactly be proud of."

"Exactly," Sarah smiled, as she pulled out two pistols and raised them up to beside her head. "You're not exactly the classic good guys, are you? Murderers, thieves, delinquents… where are the purely good guys these days?"

"Sarah?" Harry asked, looking over at her.

"Yes, _wizard_?" Sarah asked, a mocking tone in her voice.

"Shut up," Harry said.

Then he whipped out his wand, yelled "_Stupefy_!" four times in rapid succession, fired the spell at Sarah, Bullseye, Malfoy, Kate and Trevalyn in the chests, and watched as they collapsed to the ground in heaps.

Harry smiled briefly as he watched them fall down. He couldn't have been certain if a simple Stunning spell like that would have affected the rest of the Syndicate, but at least he'd managed to take down half of them; that should leave the odds a bit more in their favour.

Rigelus looked down at the fallen members, and then looked up at Harry, a smirk on his face.

"You think that'll be enough?" he said to the young wizard, a smirk on his face. "You're still outnumbered and- proverbially, at least- 'outgunned'. You don't have a prayer, and you know it."

"Rigelus?" Angel said, looking over at the vampire. As Rigelus turned to face him, Angel ran forward and launched a punch at his opponent's head, knocking him flat on his back.

"Shut up," Angel growled.

As though it had been a cue, the rest of the Syndicate and the League leapt towards each other, each member of the Syndicate rapidly finding themselves struggling with a member of the League. Terry was trading blows with Whitney, Fiona and Harry were trying to stay ahead of Drusilla, Gwen was head to head with Gash, and Clark and Eilidh found themselves facing the suits.

Angel grinned as he turned to look back at Rigelus, who was getting to his feet with a fixed expression of rage on his face.

"Think we're weak now?" he asked his demon.

Rigelus didn't even bother to answer; he just leapt up and began to attack his 'twin', each blow being parried by an equal blow from Angel.

The fight was on.

* * *

"Come on, come on…" the Doctor commented, as he hurried along the stone corridor that he was sure would lead to Im Ho Tep's room. He wasn't sure what they'd find when they got there, but he knew that he would rather confront it sooner rather then later; later might be _too _late…

"Ah, you're here," a voice said, as the Doctor turned round a corner.

Skidding to a stop for the first time in his life, the Doctor held up his arms to stop Bond and Elektra as they ran around the corner after him, and looked at the figure in front of them.

It was a man, dressed in a black suit and a long black cloak with a red inner lining that reached down to his ankles. He carried a thick black cane with a silver skull on the end of it in one hand, and his head was covered by a silver mask that only exposed his eyes, nose and mouth.

Bond blinked in surprise at the man's rather unusual clothes, but recovered quickly, and walked forward to stand slightly in front of the Doctor.

"You'd be the man who calls himself 'Im Ho Tep', I presume?" he asked the figure, as he fingered his Walther in a slightly nervous manner; even after everything he'd seen in the past few days, he still wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of tackling a potentially supernatural opponent with only his normal weapons.

"I am," the man grinned. "And you would be… let me guess… James Bond, the Doctor, and Elektra Natchios?" He smirked under his mask. "I would have expected to rate more powerful members of the League then this."

"Really?" Elektra asked, raising her daggers slightly. "Well, no offence, _Im Ho Tep_, but why the hell should we bother with sending powerful members after you when we don't even know who you really are? For all we know you might just be a normal guy with too much ideas; why should we be scared of you?"

The man smiled at her. "Why don't I show you?" he asked her.

Then he raised his hands to his head and tapped a clasp on the side of his head. The mask popped open and fell to the ground, revealing his true appearance.

He was a handsome man, with a small black beard and long dark hair, with a slight curl about it, along with deep brown eyes. His skin was smooth, and he looked like he was only in about his mid-twenties, but there was an air about him that gave the impression of something far older.

"My name is Gray," he said, smiling slightly at them.

"Mr Dorian Gray."


	25. Souls, Demons, and the Syndicate

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated

**Sean Malloy-1:** Well, glad to hear I kept you guessing about his identity; I was trying not to make it too obvious.

**Rhinoa Katherine Silvermoon: **That shall be explained, I promise you that.

**Felicia Angel: **Glad that Gray's resurrection meets with your approval, and I assure you, I have a VERY interesting explanation as to how he's come back.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

The three League members just stared at Dorian for a few moments after that statement, but then Bond broke the silence.

"You can't be Dorian Gray," he said simply.

"Really?" Dorian asked, twirling his cane in one hand as he spoke. "And what makes you so sure of that? I am an immortal, am I not?"

"Ah, well, you see, even if you are who you say you are, I doubt that you actually _are_ an immortal, given that Mrs Harker managed to kill you when the two of you fought all those years ago in this place," the Doctor said, smiling casually at Dorian. "After all, the last time I checked, you were only an immortal if you couldn't die."

Then he raised one finger to make his next point all the clearer. "Besides, the last time I checked, you were dependant on your portrait for your immortality, and according to those files we were given pieces of the portrait were found at the scene of each crime. If you were really Gray, how could you live without your picture?"

"You would mock me, Doctor?" Gray asked, turning to look at the Time Lord. He smiled. "Ah… that is unfair of you, my good sir. You could not know what I have been through… what I have had to sacrifice to get to this point… and who I have made deals with…"

"If you mean the Syndicate, we're not exactly impressed," Elektra said, slowly raising her arms. "I mean, we managed to take them down fairly quickly even when they had the element of surprise; it's not like they were all that hard to handle." If she could just time it right, she might be able to stab Gray in his eyes before he could do anything about it…

"Oh, the Syndicate?" Dorian asked, looking over at her with a smug grin on his face. "No, I'm talking about someone far more evil than any of them, Miss Natchios." He grinned widely. "I'm talking about the very father of Evil himself."

Bond stared at Dorian for a few seconds, an incredulous expression on his face, before he eventually spoke.

"Are you talking about the Devil, or somebody else we might know about?" he asked.

Dorian looked over at Bond with an impressed expression on his face. "Good job, Mr Bond," he said, his voice conveying his surprise. "You got it right on the first guess."

Elektra blinked. "What?" she said, looking at Dorian in nervous apprehension. "Are you telling us that you… sold your soul to Satan or something?"

Dorian grinned. "Exactly," he said, looking over at her. "In exchange, he sent my mind and body back to Earth, regenerated into a stronger form then what I had previously possessed, as well as removing my connection to my portrait that I was once dependant on for my immortality, and gave me the innate ability to sense the evil within men and women."

He smirked as he looked over at them. "I must say, you three are an interesting little blend of good and evil; this world is losing its innocence with every generation. I don't know why anyone bothers to try and save it anymore; even the 'heroes' have a remarkable amount of darkness within them."

* * *

The Doctor shrugged. "Someone has to do the job," he said. "Besides, if you look at the negatives, it's no wonder you think we don't deserve to make it; you have to take the bad and the good, Mr Gray."

"Well said, Doctor," Bond said, patting his strange friend on the shoulder. Then he raised his gun and pointed it at Gray. "Now then, what would you prefer me to do to you? Shoot you and kill you, or just shoot you and cripple you?"

Dorian shook his head pityingly. "Oh, come now, Bond, why is it you secret agents always think you can solve your problems by shooting at them?" he said, looking over at Bond. "You don't honestly think that your stupid pistol could ever hope to stop me? I am a god upon this earth, and you? You are just a mere man."

Bond shrugged. "You may have a point there, Gray," he said casually. "Shall we find out if it's an accurate one?"

And he fired the gun at Dorian, two bullets striking the immortal in the face before he could do anything about them.

Blinking, Dorian held up his hand to his face and felt at the two holes, one across his left cheek and another slightly lodged in his jaw. As the League watched, the injuries healed up, light sprinklings of grey ash falling out of the holes before they completely disappeared.

Dorian looked up at Bond and smiled.

"It's been a long time since I've been injured like that," he said casually. Then his smile vanished, to be replaced by a glare that looked like it had been carved from stone. "And I don't like it a bit."

Raising his cane, he grabbed the end of it and pulled it off, revealing a long silver sword that he held with an ease that suggested it had been in his hand since the day he was born. He smiled as he looked over at the three League members.

Pointing the sword towards them, Dorian took up an offensive stance, and smiled at the League. "Shall we dance?" he asked casually.

Elektra snapped.

Leaping forward, Elektra struck Dorian's sword with one of her daggers, throwing the blade off to the side long enough for her to launch the second dagger straight towards Dorian's voice box, only to have her wrist caught and be thrown off to the side by the immortal before she could even make contact.

As she landed hard on the ground, Dorian swung around, his sword pointing downwards as though he was intending to cut her throat, but the Doctor grabbed his arm and yanked the sword back before it could strike home, following it up with a swift punch to Dorian's face that sent the immortal reeling backwards, knocking him off balance long enough for Bond to fire two bullets through Dorian's jaw and into his brain.

As the immortal collapsed to the ground, Elektra got back onto her feet and looked down at his fallen form, blood streaming from the wound in his head, before turning back to Bond and the Doctor.

"Well, that was easy enough," she said, flexing her shoulders as she slid her daggers into her belt and began massaging her wrists.

The Doctor didn't answer. Instead, he crouched down and checked Dorian's neck for a pulse, before looking back up at Elektra.

"No, it wasn't," he said, as he got to his feet and brushed the blood off his fingertips. "Gray's still alive; all the bullet did was put him out of action for a few minutes while his body tries to repair the damage it did." He looked up at Bond. "We'll need some help."

Bond nodded as he slid out his cartridge and began to check his pockets. "I'll get this loaded, then we have to get back to the others," he said, as he pulled out some extra bullets and slid them into the cartridge. Taking one last look at Dorian's fallen body, he slid the cartridge back into the gun and ran back down the corridor towards the rest of the League.

If they couldn't find a way to stop Gray, he didn't want to imagine what would happen…

* * *

AN: For the following combat scenes with the rest of the League, they'll all be taking place at around the same time, in case you're wondering why nobody went to the aid of their teammates once their opponent was down for the count.

* * *

"Stop _running_, you alien freak!" one of the men in the suits yelled at Clark, as he dodged another laser blast that had been fired at him.

"No thanks; I happen to like this shirt," Clark said, smiling slightly as he looked back at the two suits that had been on his case since the fight started. Eilidh was keeping the other two occupied mainly by using her telekinesis, he assumed; every time one of them aimed a gun, she looked at it briefly and then it jerked up to point at the roof just as it fired.

As another shot headed towards him, Clark dodged to the side and sighed as he looked up at the roof. He'd been having fun taunting these guys for a while- it wasn't often he got the chance to just goof about and show off when in action- but things were starting to get a bit too close for his liking.

It was time to end this.

Charging towards the nearest suit, he grabbed one of its arms and yanked it towards him as he launched a punch at the thing's chest with his other hand, tearing through the thick layers of metal and striking the man's ribs at such a speed that Clark only just managed to stop the blow before he broke the man's ribs. Grabbing the torn metal, he yanked a large chunk of the suit away from the rest of it, following it up with tearing a chunk off the opposite side before finishing it off with a resounding uppercut that knocked the helmet right off the suit and sent the man in it crashing to the ground with a massive thud.

Clark stared down at the fallen figure for a few seconds, using his X-ray vision to make sure that the man wasn't permanently injured, and then spun around and dashed towards the second suit he'd been keeping occupied, raising one fist in preparation for the first strike…

* * *

"_Stupefy_!" Harry yelled, firing the spell at the insane vampire in front of him, only grazing Drusilla's side due to her heightened reflexes. He consoled himself with the fact that it probably wouldn't have done much good anyway; he wasn't sure if the Stupefying curse would work on something that was technically dead.

However, he was relieved to see that his attempt had given Fiona the chance to launch a punch of her own, knocking Drusilla off-balance long enough for him to fire a quick Jelly-Legs jinx at her, sending her off-balance and allowing Harry to fire a second Stupefying spell, this time actually managing to hit Drusilla rather then just graze her.

As the vampire collapsed to the ground, Fiona turned visible once again and gave Harry the thumbs-up.

"Nice job," she said, smiling at him.

"Thanks," Harry said, shrugging slightly. The he sighed. "Too bad it may not keep her down for long…"

"What?" Fiona asked, looking over at Harry, shock evident on her face. "What do you mean, it won't last long?"

"That spell was only ever intended to be used on a human, Fiona," Harry explained, as his teammate moved a few feet away from Drusilla. "I can't be certain what effect it would have on someone who's technically dead; she may only be down for a few minutes at best."

"Well then," Fiona said, walking over to stand beside Harry, "it would appear we've only got one option." She held out her hand. "Your wand, please."

"What?" Harry said, looking at her in confusion. "What do you need my wand for?"

"What do you think?" Fiona shrugged. "We don't have anything else that's sharp enough for us to use as a stake; your wand's going to have to-"

She was stopped when a powerful fist struck her in the jaw, sending her flying back onto the ground with a cracking sound that didn't sound too good to Harry. He turned around…

And found himself face to face with Drusilla.

"Hello, my little owlet…" she said, grinning widely at him.

Harry didn't even hesitate. Remember what Angel had told him about Drusilla's ability to mesmerise her opponents, he closed his eyes and, wand clenched in his left hand, launched rapid punch at her head with his right, and was grateful when he made contact with cold, unliving flesh. It didn't feel like it had done much damage to Drusilla, but right now, all he needed was to get her off guard for a few seconds so he could try something else…

"_Reducto_!" he yelled, his eyes still shut as he raised his wand, to be rewarded with a sharp scream of agony and a slight fizzing sound that was accompanied by the smell of burning flesh.

Opening his eyes, Harry smiled with relief at the sight in front of him; Drusilla, lying on the ground, clutching her side in agony, a neat semicircle grazing her ribcage.

Then he remembered Fiona, and, turning around, charged towards his friend, narrowly avoiding the struggle between Angel and Rigelus in the process, before he was standing beside her.

Checking her over, he was relieved to see that she seemed relatively unharmed; she was still breathing, and there weren't any obvious cuts or broken limbs, but her jaw was unpleasantly distorted in a manner that Harry was sure couldn't be healthy.

Swallowing, Harry prayed that he remembered this spell Hermione had taught him a couple of years back after she'd become a Healer, placed his wand against Fiona's jaw, and said clearly, "_Bono Reparo_."

Instantly, a soft glow surrounded Fiona's face, and her jaw automatically slid back into a normal shape, followed closely by Fiona blinking her eyes open and looking up at Harry with a curious expression.

"What just happened?" she asked him casually.

"Well, Drusilla's down for the moment, I've just healed your injured jaw, and right now, you just need to give it a few minutes to let the spell settle before you get back up," he said, shrugging in an attempt to match her casual manner. Then he stood up, drew his wand, and turned to stand in front of her. "I'll make sure nobody tries to hit you while you're down."

* * *

"Whoa!" Gwen yelled, leaping back as Gash launched another powerful punch at her; the bastard hadn't even transformed into his wolf shape and he was already giving her trouble. Evidently, his strength wasn't totally dependant on him being in his animal form; he could access its power even when he was only human, if only to a certain degree.

"Stay back, you freaky bastard!" she yelled, throwing a ball of electricity at his chest. He flinched at the strike, which at least showed that he could be hurt, but given that he continued throwing punches at her after that, it evidently wasn't enough damage to stop him for any length of time.

"_You little BITCH_!" Gash roared, as his nails suddenly grew longer and he lashed out at her again, his claws hurtling towards her arm. Instantly, Gwen boosted the electricity in that part of her body, forming a small electric force field that burnt through the claws before Gash could do anything to stop himself.

As Gash roared in pain, Gwen spread her arms out, fingers stretched as far as they could go, crackling with electricity. The energy began to gather in the palms of her hands, and, as she looked up at Gash, who was already recovering from his last injury, he was shocked to see that there were small sparks coming from her pupils.

"Wh… what are you doing?" he asked her, as he actually took a step back as he stared at her.

Gwen grinned. "What does it look like?" she asked, sounding a bit more powerful then before, somehow. "You wanted to hit me hard, Gash; I'm just returning the favour…"

She chuckled slightly as she moved her hands in front of her, bringing the massive balls of energy together. "Tenfold," she added casually.

Then she fired a massive bolt of electricity at his chest, watching dispassionately as Gash screamed and roared in pain, his whole body crackling with electrical energy, before collapsing to the ground, his body slightly smoking and his eyes half-shut, as he stared up at the roof.

Gwen lowered herself to the floor as her residual electrical energy vanished into the air, and her eyes returned to normal. Looking over at Gash, she sighed slightly; he'd taken everything she'd been able to hit him with, and had almost stood up to it.

She really hoped that was him down; she wasn't sure she'd managed to hit him like that for a second time.

* * *

"Stop that!" Rigelus yelled, as Angel grabbed his fist before it could strike and just stared casually at the other vampire.

"Stop what?" Angel asked casually, before launching a punch of his own at his opponent's scar, knocking him down to the ground. "Stop overpowering you? Stop outmanoeuvring you? Stop just being better then you?" He grinned and leaned over slightly to look his old demon in the eyes. "Not going to happen, _Ri_gelus; you're weaker then me now. You're as experienced as I am, but I've got the advantage in raw strength and speed; you don't have much of a chance at stopping me."

Rigelus growled and launched a punch at Angel's face, leaping up while the part-vampire stumbled back slightly in surprise.

"You'll _pay _for that!" he roared at his former host. "I'm _far _better then _you_ could ever be!"

With those words, he redoubled his efforts, launching several punches at Angel, who was forced back as he desperately deflected the blows. Angel vaguely saw Harry run past the two vampires as they thought, but didn't bother calling out for help; this was his battle, and he'd win it on his own merits. Besides, he doubted Harry could spare time from his own battle to help Angel win his; the young wizard and definitely looked pretty concerned when he'd dashed past…

Turning his attention back to Rigelus, Angel briefly went over his options in his head, before hitting upon the one thing he could do that might win this fight, mainly because he'd practically never used it before. True, he normally hated hitting below the belt, but in this case, it just had to be done…

He rammed his knee directly into Rigelus's groin.

Yelping in pain, the other vampire briefly dropped his guard, allowing Angel to launch a powerful punch at his foe's head, knocking him down and out straight away.

* * *

"What… _are_… you!" Whitney roared, as he launched punch after punch at Terry, who deflected every one of the blows easily; Whitney's new body may have been based on his own, but, at heart, Whitney was still just a normal human being, with too much strength and little practical knowledge of hand-to-hand combat, while Terry had over a century of experience to draw on, coupled with the information pre-programmed into him by Skynet.

"What I am is simple enough, Mr Fordman," Terry said, smiling as he grabbed both of Whitney's fists in his hands to look the other cyborg in the eyes. "I am the Terminator. You know, Skynet, Sarah Connor, Cyberdyne, artificial intelligence, all that sort of thing?"

Whitney looked at Terry for a few seconds, and then lashed out with a powerful kick to the stomach that knocked Terry off-balance long enough for Whitney to break free.

Whitney just smiled at Terry as his opponent regained his footing, looking at the older cyborg with a casual confidence.

"Nice lie, whoever you are," he said, smirking slightly as he spoke. "But you can't fool me; I'm not the crazy one here. The Terminator's just something from a film; it doesn't exist, except as an idea."

Then his smile dropped and he looked back at Terry. "Besides, even if you _are _telling the truth, the last time I checked, the Terminator also got destroyed at the movie's end."

Terry sighed, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small device that looked like an electric razer, which he then pointed at Whitney.

Whitney looked at it in confusion. "What…?" he asked.

Terry looked Whitney in the eyes.

"Shut up," he said.

Then he charged forward and rammed the device in Whitney's chest, sending a massive electrical discharge throughout Whitney's metallic skeleton. Whitney opened his mouth as though he was going to scream, but then a small explosion sounded from somewhere inside him, and he collapsed onto the ground.

Terry sighed as he looked down at the body.

"They never learn…" he said, smiling slightly at the fallen form. He knew it wasn't much of a victory, but it meant a great deal to him. After all, Whitney was almost the flip-side to him, in a sense; he was a machine who'd learned how to be more human, and Whitney was a man who had become a machine.

He was just grateful that was as far as the similarities in their histories went; it was disturbing enough having a copy of him running about the place, he didn't want to _sympathise _with it as well…

* * *

"Whoa!" Eilidh yelled, as she launched herself up into the air, narrowly avoiding the oncoming laser fire from the suit. "Watch where you're firing that thing, willya?" she yelled at the man inside the suit, all the time trying to come up with a good strategy to put this guy down.

Telekinetically tearing the suit apart had its charms, she'd have to admit, but it would take too long and she couldn't be sure what to hit first to stop him firing at her. The mind clench would be the easiest, but she needed time to focus for that to work, and these guys weren't giving her that opportunity right now…

That left only one option.

Landing on the ground, she spun around to face the two suits that she was dealing with and, before they could do anything, had raised her hands and thrown them back into the wall behind them. Eilidh watched as the force of the impact shook the already rather fragile wall apart, sending quite a few tonnes of rubble tumbling onto the suits, burying them in a matter of seconds.

Eilidh smiled.

"And that, I believe, is where you stay down," she said to the pile of rubble.

Then a third suit flew past her and crashed into the rubble, the tearing sound of metal making it clear that it wouldn't be getting back up any time soon.

Eilidh sighed and turned back to look at Clark, who was standing in the middle of the building with one hand outstretched in a punching motion.

"Did you have to hit him that hard?" she asked, indicating the fallen suit behind her.

* * *

Clark shrugged. "Had to be sure," he said, taking his hand down and looking around at the others. He smiled; everyone had apparently defeated their respective opponents. Now all they needed was to know how things had gone for the others in their confrontation with Im Ho Tep, and they were home and dry…

Just as that thought crossed his mind, a door burst open and Bond, Elektra and the Doctor came charging through it.

The Doctor quickly glanced around the room and then smiled up at the rest of the League.

"Excellent job, everyone," he said, smiling broadly, his face looking like his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets, he was grinning so much…

Then his gleeful expression vanished, and he looked serious again. "Now, get ready to fight."

"The Im Ho Tep fight didn't go too well, then?" Fiona asked, as Harry hauled her back onto her feet and she looked over at the new arrivals.

* * *

"Oh, it might have gone well; it's just that the bastard turns out to be a resurrected Dorian Gray who's sold his soul to the Devil!" Elektra yelled desperately. She was already scanning the area around her, as though trying to anticipate which they'd be attacked from when Gray came in.

"What!" Terry yelled, looking over at Elektra in horror. "_Dorian Gray is ALIVE_!"

"Yes, he is," Bond said, looking over at the cyborg. "No offence, but I thought you joined the League after he was killed; why are you so bothered by it?"

Terry looked over at Bond, looking a bit angry at first, but then he calmed down and sighed.

"I think it's more the principal of the thing," he said, eventually. "You know, he was a major threat to the first real family I ever had; I just… just _hate_ the idea that he's back to cause more damage, I guess."

"I see," Bond said, nodding briefly before looking around at the League. "Everyone get ready; we know for a fact that Gray can't be killed for conventional means, and he may be stronger than you'd expect if he can be believed. We can't afford to give him the chance to get a shot in!"

"Hey, relax, willya?" Gwen smiled, looking over at the spy. "There's one of him, and ten of us. How hard can it be?"

A wall crashed open, and the darkly-clad form of Dorian Gray walked into the room, followed by four massive werewolves, four men clad in black leather suits who could probably be vampires, and two men with large metallic appendages stretching over their arms up to their elbows.

Gray smiled at the League, twirling his cane-sword as he looked at them.

"Ready to die?" he asked them casually.


	26. The Fall of the Suits

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated

**Inu Yokai:** Well, here it is; hope you like it.

**Rhinoa4: **Is that a good shrug, a bad shrug, or just a shrug shrug? But that aside, hope I didn't keep you waiting too long

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

The League didn't even stop to think.

Instantly, they all automatically shifted into a combat position, varying depending on their favoured method of combat; Bond raised his gun, Elektra twirled her daggers and grabbed the hilts, Harry aimed his wand at Gray's face, Eilidh and Gwen spread their arms out to gather their powers, and Fiona, the Doctor, Angel, Clark and Terry took up combat stances, one arm outstretched in a beckoning gesture, the Doctor throwing his scarf over his shoulder before taking up the stance and Fiona turning invisible after she'd assumed her own.

Gray smirked at the sight.

"You think you can stop _me_!" he said, sounding like he was ready to break down in peals of laughter. "_You_, a random collection of misfits, stop _me_, a man powered by the very Father of Evil himself? What makes you think you have even the _slightest _chance?"

Angel just smiled as he looked over at Gray.

"We're the League," he said simply. "I'd say that gives us a pretty good chance."

"Don't make me laugh!" Gray smirked. "The League were pathetic! A bunch of losers and outcasts who banded together solely because there was nobody else for them! You're nothing more then a bunch of wannabes trying to live up to a legend that bears no resemblance to the reality that inspired it!"

Terry looked over at Gray with an expression that couldn't have been blanker if he'd forgotten all the emotions he'd developed over the last century.

"_Don't_ talk about my League that way," he said simply.

Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out an H&K 9 millimetre pistol, and fired a couple of rounds at Dorian's head.

Gray's head reeled back as the bullets struck home, but then he turned around to look at the former killer with a smirk on his face as the bullet holes began to fade away.

"That was pointless," he said casually to Terry. Then his face hardened. "You're mine."

Drawing his cane sword, he leapt towards Terry, blade drawn, as the ex-murderer threw his gun aside and grabbed the blade in both his hands, yanking it out of the immortal's grasp and throwing it off to the side as he launched a punch at the immortal's head.

The battle had begun.

* * *

As soon as Terry and Gray began to trade blows, the rest of the League turned their attention to the suits that were standing behind Gray. Raising his gun, Bond fired seven bullets in rapid succession at the nearest suit, Harry pulled out his wand and rapidly fired off a couple of quick fireballs at another, Clark hit another suit with his heat vision, while Gwen launched as powerful a blast of electricity as she could at the remaining suits.

Simultaneously, Fiona turned invisible and ducked off to the side, followed by the Doctor and Bond (Whose gun had run out of bullets), while Angel, Eilidh and Elektra dived off in the other direction, leaving Clark, Gwen and Harry to keep the suits at bay.

* * *

"So, any ideas?" Fiona whispered to Bond and the Doctor, after they'd found a good position for themselves, out of the immediate line of fire.

"Well, Terry can handle himself against Gray well enough, so our immediate problem is stopping the suits," Bond said, as he looked over at the massive machines; Clark, Harry and Gwen were doing their best, but they couldn't keep them back forever.

The spy looked over at the Doctor. "You're our technological expert, Doctor; any ideas?"

"Well, I do have a couple of suggestions," the Doctor said, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal device that reminded Bond and Fiona of an electric toothbrush. "It's a long shot, but if I can boost the screwdriver's power to about double its current setting, then trigger a wide-range high frequency vibration…" he muttered to himself, as he began to fiddle with a few dials on the back of the device.

"High frequency?" Fiona said, looking over at the Doctor. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a high-pitched sound have some rather… averse affects on our eardrums?"

The Doctor smiled casually. "Excellent point, Miss Brand," he said calmly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out several small objects, which he tossed to Fiona. "See what you can do, hmm?"

Fiona looked at the objects in her hand.

Earplugs.

Sighing, she slipped them into her pocket and stood up.

"What the hell," she said simply, looking over at the Doctor. "Just one thing; I get shot, I'll take it out on you when I get back."

"Naturally," the Doctor smiled, as a vague thudding sound was heard; evidently Fiona had started to run towards the others. He looked over at Bond, smiling. "You know, this is the best part of the business; I always know exactly where I'm standing when people are shooting at me."

Bond sighed as he looked down at the Doctor's hands, where the Time Lord had already opened up the metallic tool and was tinkering with its inner wires. He wasn't sure what the Doctor was trying to do, but he got the impression that this was probably going to take a while….

_Still, at least Q can't complain about me damaging his equipment_, Bond thought to himself, smiling slightly at the thought…

Then a bullet ricocheted past his head, and he hastily amended that thought.

_At least, _if I survive this_, Q can't complain about me damaging his equipment._

* * *

"Damnit!" Angel muttered, as he, Elektra and Eilidh ducked behind a nearby pillar, out of the immediate range of the suits if they managed to fight back. He looked over at Eilidh. "Couldn't you hit these guys with your telekinesis and buy us some time?"

Eilidh shook her head. "My powers aren't infinite; I can always use them for little things, but after my recent fight with two more of those… things, I need some time to recharge before I have the power to lift something that big," she explained, indicating the suits that were still trying to advance, despite all the power directed at them.

Angel slumped back against the pillar. "Great," he muttered to himself. Then he looked down at the daggers hanging on Elektra's belt, and smiled.

He looked around at the two women. "I have an idea," he said.

"Great; could it wait a moment or two?" a fourth voice said from off to the side.

Elektra and Eilidh jumped slightly in surprise, but Angel just sighed and looked over in the direction of the voice.

"Any particular reason you broke in just then, Fiona?" he asked the invisible woman.

"What? How'd you- oh, vampire senses, right?" Fiona asked Angel, mentally kicking herself for forgetting that; so much for making an entrance. "Well, I just figured it was the best chance I was going to get to speak up without being too impolite, I guess. Besides, you know what they say; always make an entrance."

"Yeah, yeah, what are you doing here?" Elektra asked, waving her hand impatiently.

"Oh, right," Fiona smiled, as six small white objects suddenly appeared in front of the three visible League members. "Put these into your ears; the Doctor says he's got a plan to stop the suits, but it involves high-frequency sound, so we figured it'd be best to make sure our ears couldn't get damaged, hence the earplugs."

"Ah," Elektra said, picking out a pair of earplugs and looking at them.

"Well, fair enough, I suppose," she said eventually, as she slid the plugs into her ears and craned her head around the pillar to look over at where the Doctor and Bond were crouching. She couldn't see either of her teammates, but a vague hint of dark brown that resembled the Doctor's hat suggested that they were still hard at work doing something.

Looking back at the others, she noted that Angel and Eilidh already had their earplugs in. Picking up one of her daggers, she indicated it to Angel and raised her shoulders inquiringly; she wasn't going to ask anyone to take their earplugs out if they didn't know when the Doctor would trigger his device.

Fortunately, Angel understood. Taking the dagger in one hand, he raised it above his head and mimed throwing it, indicating Eilidh as he did so. The two women nodded in understanding, and Elektra pulled out her other dagger and passed it over to Angel. Eilidh raised an inquiring hand, but Angel shook his head and glanced around the side of the pillar, as though waiting for something…

Then he let go of the daggers.

* * *

Instantly they froze in mid-air, supported by Eilidh's telekinesis. Risking a glance around the corner of the pillar, Eilidh was relieved to see that the suits appeared to have stopped trying to get through the onslaught created by Clark, Harry and Gwen, and now appeared to be…

_Shaking? _Eilidh wondered to herself. _What's that all about…?_

Then she shrugged, thought _I'll worry about that later_, and threw the daggers through the air towards two of the suits, aiming for the cables that linked the suit's helmets to the bodies.

The daggers sliced through the cables, sending sparks flying as electric shocks began to spark around the suit's joints, rapidly spreading to the other suits as the daggers flew through the air as though being held by a ghost, slicing through the cables as the suits shook as though they were in the middle of an earthquake…

And then the suits collapsed onto the ground, each one twitching slightly as they lay on the ground.

That part of the fight was over.

Now…

Eilidh sighed and looked over in the direction of Terry and Gray, who were still slugging it out behind the members of the League who'd been keeping the suits back earlier.

Now all they had to do was stop an immortal with the backing of the Devil himself, who was managing to hold his own against one of the deadliest killing machines in all of history with apparently minimal effort.

Eilidh smiled.

_Excellent_, she thought. _I've always wanted a good challenge._

The League stepped out from where they'd been hiding from the suits, and turned to face Dorian Gray.

The final battle between Dorian Gray and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was here at last.


	27. For the Love of His Family

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated

**Sean Malloy-1:** A sequel is planned out already, Sean, as well as two new League members…

**Rhinoa4:** I acknowledge that it was kind of short, but, believe, if all goes well, this chapter will have a _lot _more action than that one…

**Inu Yokai: **I get it, believe me

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

"DIE!" Gray yelled, as he launched another punch at Terry's head, only to have his opponent grab his fist and throw him off to one side, briefly knocking the wind out of him.

Gray leapt to his feet, determined to keep fighting until this killing machine, this… _thing _that should never have been, this monster that believed it was a man when it was nothing more than a massive hunk of metal…

And stopped.

The rest of the League were standing behind Terry, with either their weapons drawn or their stance clearly showing their readiness to fight.

Gray swallowed; immortal or not, he wasn't all that keen on trying his luck against all ten of the League on his own. If nothing else, the time was coming fast, and if it hit him now…

He shook his head.

_What do _I _have to fear from these fools?_ he asked himself. _I am no mere man; I am an agent of the greatest power this world has ever seen! These… these _idiots _are nothing more than blades of grass against my superior power!_

Looking at them again, Gray smiled.

Crouching down, keeping his eyes locked on the League all the time, he picked up the sword that had fallen there earlier, stood up again, and pointed it at them with a casual smirk on his face.

"En garde?" he asked them, simply.

The Kansas alien was the first to react, charging forward and launching a powerful punch at Gray's face, sending Gray reeling back even as he brought his sword up to slash at the alien's face, hitting his foe lightly in the head just as a second punch knocked Gray back again.

Before Gray could take another swing at Krypton's sole survivor, he found himself the sudden victim of a splitting headache, pain stabbing into his head behind the eyeballs as though someone had suddenly grabbed his brain and yanked hard on it.

"AARRGGHH!" he yelled, his sword falling out of his hands as he clutched his head, briefly unable to register anything but the blinding pain in his skull…

Only to have his train of thought rudely broken by getting a worn leather boot in his face, that he vaguely registered as the one that had been worn by the Doctor, followed by a few quick bullets in the chest from the spy's gun, before he found himself sprawled on his back, with a few small flecks of blood on his lips from an already-healed broken nose.

Roaring in rage, Gray leapt back onto his feet and lashed out at the nearby Doctor, knocking the Time Lord back even as he reached out to grab his sword.

"_Accio _sword!" a voice cried out, and Gray instantly found his sword flying past his outstretched fingers, to land in the hand of that idiotic young wizard, followed by two bullet-shots to the head in rapid succession from the gun of that idiotic spy.

Roaring in rage, Gray lashed out with a devastating kick that struck something he couldn't see (Evidently the Invisible Woman had been trying to sneak up on him) and resulted in a very satisfying thud as she hit the ground.

Reaching into his jacket, Gray pulled out a small pistol, aimed it, and fired desperately at the League, only to have half his bullets vaporised by electrical blasts as the ex-thief set up a massive electric shield, and the other half were thrown aside by the psychic's mental powers. In desperation, Gray threw the gun aside and leapt onto the nearest League member (Angel), tackling him to the ground and punching him in the face, briefly dazing the part-vampire.

Grinning wildly, Gray drew back his fist for another punch…

And his fist was grabbed by Angel's hand as it hurtled down towards his head.

"Don't do that," Angel said to his opponent.

Then he sharply twisted Gray's arm to one side, smiling slightly at the satisfying snap that occurred as the arm's bone broke cleanly in half. Gray screamed in pain, a scream that only intensified when Angel, in the process of leaping to his feet, grabbed Gray by the arm and one leg and threw him off to one side, following it up with a powerful kick to the pelvis that shattered the bone.

As Gray crashed into a nearby pillar, his shattered bones already desperately re-knitting themselves together after that punishment, he made a mental note to see about tracking down the best torturers money could hire once the League had fallen; that ex-vampire was going to _pay _for all this damage…

Then he felt a massive surge of electrical energy strike his back, and he instantly decided to make sure to mark that thief down for a torture session as well.

Leaping back onto his feet, despite all the punishment he'd just taken (Even _he _couldn't recover from something like that straight away), Gray charged towards the League, knocking the young wizard down before any of them could fully process what he'd managed to do, grabbing his sword from the young fool's hands, and swinging it around in a manoeuvre that struck almost half the League somewhere on their bodies, even if the cuts were only superficial (The Doctor had a cut cheek, Potter a slightly injured leg, Elektra a long, thin line on her stomach, and Eilidh a bleeding left arm).

Gray grinned.

_Now_ things were about to get interesting…

Then he doubled over in agony.

He paled as he felt his skin tighten over his face, old injuries reopen all over his skin, his bones grow more brittle and lose their strength…

_No…_ he privately begged. _Please… not here… not _now!

But he knew it wasn't going to change.

The time had come now, and he would just have to deal with it.

* * *

Bond blinked in surprise at the sight in front of him.

He wasn't sure why it was happening- or, indeed, _how _it could be happening in the first place- but, before their very eyes, Gray was….

…_aging_.

The immortal's hair was pure white, longer and scraggier than anything Bond had ever seen before, while his eyes were sunk back into their sockets as though someone had gouged out all the skin around them. His skin was drawn back over his bones as though it had shrunk, and it was covered in various small scratches and cuts, including a few larger ones around his face and chest that seemed to have been made by swords or claws.

Gray (At least, Bond _assumed _it was Gray; who knew what else had changed along with his appearance?) smirked at the League as he shakily stood up, looking around at them all with an almost casual air.

"Weren't… expecting… this… were you?" he asked them, grinning widely, exposing yellowed teeth with a few gaps in places.

Eilidh blinked in horror at the sight in front of her. "Wh… what?" she said, shaken at the withered old man who had, only moments before, been in the prime of health. "What… what _happened _to you?"

"I think I can guess," Angel said, looking over at Gray with an almost resigned expression on his face. "Your deal with the Devil included a couple of catches that you didn't ask for, am I correct?"

Gray nodded. "My soul was…. too tarnished… to provide… adequate… payment… for my… release," he panted grimly. "Satan was… prepared… to accept it… for my restoration… anyway, but… he included… this little… handicap… to make it… an equal… bargain." He smirked. "One hour of weakness… and agony… each week… for an eternity… of power? I could… see few… drawbacks."

"Really?" Elektra asked, raising her daggers. "You saw few drawbacks in reverted to a withered old husk when you were surrounded by ten able-bodied men and women who want you dead? What, do you lose your sanity as well as your health at these moments?"

"Oh no…" Gray smiled, grinning as he looked back up at the League, raising his sword as he spoke "Watch… _this_!" he roared, as he leapt forward with a speed and dexterity that no man in his shape should be able to achieve, slicing down with a blow that seemed destined to decapitate Elektra and Bond in one strike…

Or it would have done, if Clark hadn't grabbed the two of them and hauled them out of the way with merely microseconds to spare.

Landing on the ground, Gray briefly screamed in agony as his old bones cracked at the force of his landing, but then he was up and standing firmly, albeit slightly shakily, as his legs re-knit themselves together, and he took up his combat stance again.

He grinned at Clark. "A cunning… move, alien," he said. "But a… futile gesture, as… you can see; I am… still alive, and… I still possess… much of my… strength. All the ten of… you can do is… delay the inevitable. I… am immortal, and… you?" He smiled slightly. "You are all… mere men." He glanced over at Eilidh and Gwen, and rolled his eyes. "And women… of course."

"You forgot one thing," Terry said, looking over at Gray with a harsh gleam in his eyes.

"Yes?" Gray asked, turning back to look at Terry.

"There's me as well," Terry said.

Then, before the rest of the League could stop him, he'd charged forward, grabbed Gray's sword-arm, twisted it sharply to the left, and punched him in the face.

As Gray reeled back, screaming in pain at his broken arm, Terry grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head forward, to look Gray directly in the eyes.

"And _I _can stop you, even if it kills me," he said, pure hatred evident in his eyes.

* * *

"Wh… what?" Gray asked, looking in partial confusion at Terry.

"I may be only a machine, Gray, but even machines have to go sometime," Terry stated, before he punched Gray in the face again.

As Gray reeled back, clutching his bruised and bleeding mouth, Terry looked down dispassionately at the man who had tried to kill the only family he had ever know.

"And if I have to die, you're going with me," he continued.

Gray laughed harshly, the effect only slightly marred by the blood staining his lips and partly filling his mouth.

"You'll _what_!" he laughed. "I'm… _immortal_, you… walking _junkheap_! You can't just… _kill _me!"

"Oh, really?" Terry asked casually. "You forget; I have a- quite literally- photographic memory, Gray. I see it, I remember it exactly,"

He grinned wickedly. "And I've noticed you take just that little bit longer to recover from injuries now."

"So…?" Gray asked, looking arrogantly at Terry.

"So, I doubt you can survive _this _trick in your weakened state," Terry smiled, as he reached over, picked up Gray's sword, and broke it in half. Grabbing the two halves, he drove the large half, handle and all, into Gray's chest pinning him to the ground.

As Gray screamed in agony, Terry picked up the smaller half, he tore open his shirt to expose his chest, stuck the blade into his chest, and began to cut into his chest.

* * *

"Um… Terry?" Bond asked, looking in confusion at his friend. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" Terry asked, looking back at the League with a grim expression. "Didn't any of you check out 'Rise of the Machines'? I mean, I know it wasn't the best, but I _was _slightly constrained by the realities of the events in question, you know!"

"What…?" Angel asked, looking at Terry in confusion.

"Oh no…" Eilidh said, horror on her face as she realised what the former killer was intending.

"You can't!" Clark cried, realising the truth as well. "It'll kill you!"

Terry yanked the hacked flesh off his chest, exposing the metal chassis that lay beneath. A flap folded down, and Terry pulled out a small, cylindrical object, looking down at Gray as he spoke.

"I've lived for over a century by this point, Clark," he said. "I've seen the only real family I've ever known die over the course of that century, and now I've met their descendants."

He looked back at the League, a sad smile on his face. "Ten more years in which I may see all of you die, or ten more seconds in which I _know _I'll see this guy die?" he asked, indicating Gray.

His face hardened. "It's no contest."

"No! NO!" Gray yelled, as Terry turned back to face him and rammed the object into Gray's stomach.

Leaning in closer, Terry whispered three words into Gray's ear.

"You. Are. _Terminated_."

"NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO………!" Gray yelled, as a massive explosion suddenly erupted from his chest, sending blood flying in every direction, followed closely by several small bits of shrapnel from Terry's body. Some pieces started to fly towards the League, but a force shield erected by Eilidh managed to deflect the worst bits of the shrapnel…

And then it was finished.

The League looked at the scene in front of them, where only a large burn on the floor revealed that Terry and Gray had ever even been there.


	28. The Battle is Ended

Disclaimer: None of the League here are mine, and Eilidh, Fiona, Sarah, Kate, and Gash belong to themselves and their names are used here with their permission.

Feedback: Much appreciated

**Sean Malloy-1:** The sequel will be up soon, but as for the new guys… you'll have to wait and see.

**Naitriab: **True, very true… And you're correct; there isn't much left

**Rhinoa4: **Um… Glad you liked the chapter, but what's confusing about it?

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2004

"Oh my God…" Harry whispered, staring at the massive charred patch on the ground in front of him. "What… what happened?"

"Hydrogen fuel cell," the Doctor explained, sounding a little bit shaken by the events that had just taken place. "In close quarters like that, it would utterly atomise anything in immediate contact with it; even Gray couldn't survive something like that in his weakened state, especially when coupled with the beating he took from Terry."

Angel looked back at the damaged area in front of them.

"He… he sacrificed himself for us," he sighed. "He barely even knew us a week… and he died to protect us. It just seems so…"

"Unfair?" Eilidh said, a little sadly. "Yeah; he barely even had a chance to get to know us. Why would he die to save people he barely knew?"

"You heard him," Elektra put in. "He regarded the League as his family, and saw us as their descendants. He couldn't just let their legacy die."

"Yes…." a voice said from off to the side.

The League spun around to look in the direction of the voice, their eyes quickly falling on a blinking red light in one corner.

"What the…?" Clark said, before dashing over towards the light, and then running back in under a second, with something large and silver clasped in his hands. He stared down blankly at it for a few seconds, and then looked up at the League, a saddened expression on his face.

"It's him," he said to them, as he held the object in his hands out for them all to see.

The League could only stare at the image in front of them, saddened at the sight. It was evidently Terry's head, but all the skin had been stripped off, leaving only the metallic skull and red lights that they all recognised from the _Terminator _trilogy.

After a few seconds, one of the eyes briefly blinked on and off, and Terry appeared to look at the League.

"Did I do it?" he asked, his voice sounding slightly shaky, like a bad recording. "Did I make a difference?"

Bond, an expression on his face that could almost have been pain, reached out a hand to brush Terry's metallic cheek.

"Oh yes," he whispered. "You made a difference. You saved us… and you saved the world." He smiled, a brief tear trickling down his cheek as he stared at the skull. "Thank you."

Terry's jaw moved in a manner that may have been a grin if he'd actually had a real face. "The least I could do… for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen…" he said simply.

"Isn't there something we could do?" Fiona asked, staring sadly at him. "You know… stick you back together or something?"

Terry's eyes rolled over to look at her.

"No point…" he said, sighing. "I've had a good life… a hundred and ten years isn't to be sneezed at."

He looked over at the Doctor at that. "At least, not for most people."

The Doctor smiled. "I would never think of you as young, Mr Nator," he said, his voice betraying the pain he felt at the sight. "You were a nobler man than many true humans I have known."

"We'll…" Gwen swallowed, before looking back at Terry. "We'll miss you."

"I know…" Terry sighed. "But you'll manage. After all…."

He gave his attempt at a grin again. "You're the League."

Then the light in his eyes went out for the last time.

* * *

The League stared sadly at the head for a few seconds, before Angel spoke at last.

"Goodnight, sweet prince," he said softly, staring at the head in Clark's arms all the time. "You were a nobler man then we could ever have known."

After a few more seconds of silence, Harry looked around at the large fortress around them, along with the unconscious forms of their opponents.

"What do we do with these guys?" he said, looking curiously over at Bond.

Bond shrugged. "Tie them up and take them back to the _Nautilus_, I suppose," he said. "We should be able to develop a means of holding them; after all, most of them rely on certain circumstances for their powers to work."

"Exactly!" the Doctor smiled. "Mr Whitney requires kryptonite to operate at his peak, Mr Rigelus and Miss Drusilla need regular supplies of blood, Mr Malfoy requires his wand to perform spells, and the rest mainly operate on a normal physical level; locking them up is a easy as pi!"

"Aren't you forgetting someone?" Gwen said, tapping the Doctor lightly on the shoulder.

"Pardon?" the Doctor asked, looking back at Gwen.

"Him," Gwen said, indicating the collapsed form of Gash nearby.

"Ah yes," the Doctor said, sheepishly, as he followed the direction of her finger. He shrugged. "Sorry; I was so busy with our mirror images he slipped my mind."

"I'd recommend a psychiatric ward," Eilidh put in. Noting the incredulous expressions of the other League members, she shrugged. "Hey, I read his mind, remember? He's a total mess; he needs help, not imprisonment."

Bond seemed about to reply, but stopped himself, and just shrugged.

"Your call," he said, looking at Eilidh. "Just so long as you know it's on your head if he goes rogue afterwards."

Eilidh nodded. "I'll remember that."

"Right then," Elektra said, looking around at the large fortress as she spoke. "So, what do we do with this place?"

Harry raised his wand and smiled. "I think I have just the thing," he said casually. "Get the prisoners out, and I'll handle the rest."

* * *

"_Reducto_!" Harry yelled one final time, as the last of the fortress collapsed in front of him.

He looked at the two wands in his hands, and smiled. He hadn't been sure that would work- the odds of him being able to use Malfoy's wand had been slim at best- but, apparently, his link with Voldemort must have made him close enough to Malfoy to make little difference. The two wands together had made short work of the fortress, Clark having taken all the prisoners back to the _Nautilus_, and then rejoined the League as they watched their enemy's base collapse in front of them.

Slipping the wands into his pockets, Harry turned to look back at the others.

"So… what next?" he asked them.

"Well, first order of business, is to give Mr Nator the funeral he deserves," the Doctor said, looking forlornly at the skull in his hand. "Then…"

He shrugged. "We decide what we want to do with this League of ours."

The League looked around at each for a moment, deep in thought, before Angel spoke up.

"I know this may not interest anyone, but, well, I've got a few vacancies back in L. A. for some of us?" he said, casually. "I acknowledge that most of us have lives outside of the League, but-"

"Not really _all _of us," the Doctor smiled. "Harry, Clark and you do, yes, but not the rest of us; at least, not that much. The TARDIS has been my home for the past few centuries, James doesn't have much time for life outside the spy game, Elektra's cut off all ties to her past life, and Eilidh, Gwen and Fiona don't do much else besides use their powers anyway."

He looked around at them all, and smiled brightly again. "You have to admit, we have few reasons to split up the team now. After all, who knows? We may be needed in the future."

Eilidh looked around curiously at the other women for a few seconds before they all nodded in agreement and turned back to Angel.

"We'll stick around in your firm for a while," she said, smiling. "Be nice to have a steady job, at least."

Angel smiled. "Thanks," he said, before looking over at the four men. "You guys?"

The four of them looked around at each other, and then Harry sighed.

"I'd stick around, but Ginny's probably waiting for me," he said. "Call me if anything comes up that needs me, but I can't just leave her like that."

"I'll have to go as well," Clark said. "Saving the world is one thing, but I think my parents will want me back sooner rather than later."

Bond shrugged. "I'd love to, but I should probably head back to Britain soon," he said. "Saving the world doesn't exactly wait around until it's convenient, you know."

"I'll be happy enough to wait here for a while," the Doctor smiled. "After all, time travel's all well and good, but I should probably take a break for a while anyway."

Angel smiled. "Excellent," he said.

Bond held out one hand, palm downwards, and looked around at the others. Realising his intent, they all laid their hands on top his, and looked around at each other with a slight smile on their faces, glad at this new 'family' they had all found….

A new legend had begun.

**THE END**


End file.
